


Paroxysm

by Squiddly



Category: Hellsing
Genre: Alucard's Wife, Atheist Character, F/M, Gore, Historical, Mina - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 08:54:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 54,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2382422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squiddly/pseuds/Squiddly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liquid ruby flowed through his teeth. It was a sensation he prayed never to face. This particular flavor was repugnant, putrid, the blood tasted soiled. This woman was not supposed to die. Certainly not like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Phobetor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I’ve decided to change the rating on this story since there isn’t anything sexually explicit and if you’re reading a story about Alucard, chances are you’re prepared for a bit of blood. This all started as a one-shot so it can appear a bit choppy at first. I hope you enjoy!

_Paroxysm (n):_

_1\. A sudden, intense expression of strong feeling._

_2\. Violent disruption of power._

* * *

_Phobetor (n):_

_1\. The son of Hypnos, god of sleep, is the god of nightmares. He walks in dreams, a nightmarish figure, inflicting fear on those who deserved it._

* * *

1879- Russo-Turkish War.

 

Liquid ruby flowed through his teeth. It was a sensation he prayed he would never have to face. This particular flavor was repugnant, _putrid_ , the blood tasted soiled. This woman was not supposed to die. Certainly not like this.

Falling droplets of blood joined hers over the ever whitening skin of her face as red tears began to flow and drip from his chin, further dirtying her pristine flesh.

'She will _never_ be yours, _demon._ '

The threat laced within those words had never truly hit their mark until this very moment as she lay dead in his arms. He curled around her body protectively, clutching her small head to his chest as the rest of her mangled body sprawled out in a disheveled, vulgar, manner between his slightly parted knees.

That foul excuse of a human had been right. She could never be his. And now, as her broken, _violated_ body lay in ruins, slathering red bruises over his clothes, he felt the weight of responsibility at his negligence. Now he mourned the loss of the only purity in his life due to his own reckless indecision.

Together they had recovered from their personal Hells. They escaped purgatory better known child slavery as a pair: one living, the other dead. Though, it would now seem that her Hell had far exceeded his comprehension.

He always imagined that in a time of dire need, in the unimaginable event of her premature death, he would turn her. Then, although she would lose the perfect innocence of her soul, she could stay with him and continue shielding him from this suicidal hate that currently felt exceptionally irrepressible. Tremors fell over his body as he tried to contain himself as not to crush her delicate little corpse.

 _No_.

He felt her body begin to stiffen as rigor mortis slowly set in and this set off a chain reaction of violence that he was hard pressed to suppress. He couldn't lose this small shred of restraint she had given him. Not now. For now he was fated to endure an immortal life without light, without his guardian angel.

Finally gaining the courage to look at her face fully, his typically uninhibited grin nonexistent, it was replaced instead with a hard line as he traced her soft features with crimson eyes, then once more with the gentle pad of his fingertip to memorize her every line, curve and imperfection. The loveliness of her features aside, her pallid throat was completely eviscerated and torn in two from where he desperately attempted hoarding her dying soul in the darkness by biting her. His eyes traveled to her habit. It was torn from stomach to hip and the entire hem was forcibly removed, blood from the savage act of defloration evident across the white fabric. His stomach turned. He wanted to believe she was simply too holy to become a vampire.

His eyes wandered down the stretch of her left arm to her fingers, then over that blasted piece of metal encircling the space above one knuckle engorged with death. He couldn't help but utter a choked laugh, which sounded more like a sob. Even as she was being brutalized she refused to fight back, her hands were without cuts and defensive wounds. It was just the way she was, she likely prayed for the forgiveness of her attacker as he tore her body apart.

It was still there, mocking him, on her small hand was a small golden ring. His eyes squeezed shut to cut off the vicious screaming in his head.

A purity ring.

For years he tried to woo her with everything in his power. It became a game to make her give in to him like so many women had in the past, to make her give her body to him and no one else until the end of eternity. To make her marry him, sleep with him, stay with him, forever. His unbeating heart twisted painfully in his chest at all of the time he wasted on something so trivial as sex. She never did give him what he wanted. She was too good. Far too good for a diabolical creature such as him.

Slow crunching footfalls came to his ears as a pair of white boots with gold trim appeared in the top corner of his visual field, distracting him from the dead girl. There were small stains of blood on this one's robes, a pair of scythes on his back.

"Бедняжка" that slimy, accented voice came, "Это не должен был быть этот путь…" the male chided from above in a language the vampire could not understand, "Она была весьма _красотой_ , она была нет?"

He understood that word. Artemy had spoken it so many times, how could he ever forget?

 _Красотой_. That monster called _his_ Artemy _beautiful_? Yes, she _had_ been. But that was not for her desecrater to judge.

Violent fury overtook the vampire. He reached up with one long arm and gripped the skin of his smirking enemy's face, separating it from the adipose tissue beneath, then sloughing the loose dermis from its host, discarding it casually, yet, carefully as not to taint his fallen lover's corpse.

The Count stood as fresh blood dripped from his fingertips to cast a long moonlit shadow over the squirming man who gripped the exposed muscle of his face, screaming in pain.

Those were the last words that profane mongrel would ever utter. Aside from the bloodcurdling cries for absolution that echoed across the landscape as he tore the vile excuse for a human apart, savoring each cry and plea with satisfaction.

Vlad Dracula grimaced when the skinned man began moving, reaching out in desperation.

Even in death this creature had the audacity to reach out to her with an arm only composed of blood and torn muscle. The unnervingly calm vampire ceased the man's diminutive progress by crushing the extended arm under a heavy boot, causing it to explode into a fine ocean spray of red.

The man let out a strangled yell just before Vlad severed his throat, transforming the helpless scream into desperate gargles and voiceless gasps for air.

Vlad was unwilling to allow any part of his angel's ruiner to become part of his soul by sinking his teeth into the squirming mass of pitiful gasps and tears at his feet. Though the fear in the damned creature's eyes may have made it worth the sacrifice.

Small pitiful garbled noises escaped the skinned man's disfigured throat as the massively tall, dark haired vampire drove his daggar-like fingers through his chest to dig out the monster's beating heart, only to crush it in front of his fluttering eyes. Only when the man was reduced to a twitching worm did the vampire toss the deflated sack of meat to the ground.

Staying true to his reputation as Vlad the Impaler, he laughed at the whirlwind of blood and disarray surrounding him, even as those endless, heartbroken tears dribbled from his chin.

...

Alucard woke in a state.

He hadn't thought of _her_ in an unforgivably long time.

It was amazing what detail his memory still served him with. Each strand of her platinum hair was placed in meticulous detail. The sensation of tearing through that filth's chest cavity, cracking his ribs, then reveling in the choked cries of desperation as that foul monster died watching his own heart crushed before his eyes.

It was all so _real_.

The dark haired vampire closed his eyes again more tightly to rid himself of the memory only to face another onslaught of images. These were far more tolerable yet exceedingly more agonizing.

They were of Artemy's sweet face smiling up at him when she told him she was joining a convent. Then the memory of how angry he became and how many times he _commanded_ that she choose another lifestyle. It made him feel ill.

The scent of her virgin blood pulsing through her veins. The sound of her erratic heartbeat when he pushed her up against the stone wall with the full intent of drinking her only to give her a small kiss. At which, she promptly slapped him across the face with a peach colored blush painted prettily across the bridge of her nose.

A smile crossed his face at the memory.

He had chosen to let her do what made her happy, or whatever well masked emotions she felt toward the institution. If it helped her sleep at night, to ward off her own demons, then it was good enough for Vlad Dracula, Alucard, The Count, No-Life King, or any other aliases he went by. She knew what he was, she saw his every mistake when she looked into his eyes as a small child with so little fear it was almost disappointing. She accepted his sins and forgave him endlessly. Even now he couldn't regret allowing her to go down that path of immaculate rectitude. Even when he knew the deplorable consequences of his ignorance.

Imagining that she was safe with God was a result far more fulfilling than any hateful rage he could conjure toward his negligence at the moment. After all of this time he couldn't regret that she had died rather than become the darkness as he had.

And with that thought in mind, he found enough peace to allow sleep to find him once more.

* * *


	2. Dalliance

_Dalliance (n):_

_A brief love affair._

* * *

 

"You've got to be kidding! Please check again?" A twenty-year-old begged through the small opening in the thick plane of glass meant to stop bullets. She wondered if it was rated against insane college girls.

The frumpy orange haired woman hiding behind the glass rolled her eyes and tapped her long fake nails on her keyboard loudly as if to punctuate her frustration, "Sorry miss but there's no check by that routin' number, I'm 'fraid you'll have to take this up with your employer."

The hard 'r's of her thick southern accent somehow made this whole experience a little more demeaning. The girl frowned at the woman behind the glass and wondered how the teller got her hair to stand up like that. She looked like one of those troll dolls her parents had from the 1990's.

You see, her family was against the whole college experience so when she brought up the plan to go abroad for the last semester of senior year they basically called her a witch and (being the mature adults they were) uninvited her to both Thanksgiving and Christmas because "she was being childish". Go figure.

This was just another of life's many ironies.

'Eh, who need's 'em,' she thought with a small frown. She had a job and her friends were coming with her across the great big Lake Atlantic to indulge in Europe's wealth of history, much to mommy and daddy's dismay.

Her parents were strict Baptists. Her father: a preacher. Her mother: a Sunday school teacher. As she grew up she made the (very) conscious decision to quit attending church. Her mother thought of her as a blaspheming heathen for choosing college over God's great word. "God's great plan" for Angelica, according to her omnipotent parents, was to become a Sunday school teacher like her mom and to marry a good Christian boy from their bustling little town. Total population 367 in beautiful Middle-Of-Nowhere, Kansas USA.

The fact that she was dropped in the middle of cornfields and southern twangs with her impressively nihilistic nature was a cruel irony that no God would ever have the indecency to subject someone to.

The real plan was to become a neurobiologist; also much to her parents' dismay.

Evolution was such an outlandish concept that her parents actually thought the human brain was an organ to promote God's almighty word. You know, instead of a 3-pound mass of interconnected neural cells that use electrochemicals to complete any task from solving intricate arithmetic to spontaneously combusting into creative thought.

Heaven? Hell? Angelica didn't know which was more laughable.

Thus far in her journey to go abroad she had overcome crazy foot-washing Baptists and maxed out student loans, so this last financial bump was the final hurdle before the finish line. The check was due before 6pm and if she couldn't get it to the bursar before that time Ohio State University would refund her deposits and give the plane ticket to another student.

That could not happen.

Then, of course, as if to poke her in the eye, fate decided that her boss would stunt her pay the day before the final deposit was due just because of some intellectual argument she had with a patron about ecumenism in the Catholic Church and how it will never happen.

It wasn't her fault they walked out without paying. That was their good Christian moral compass guiding them out the door.

Nearly shaking with wrought disappointment, Angelica slouched against the counter in defeat.

"Could you print out a copy of my remaining balance? I just want to see." She asked dejectedly as the woman gave her the most pitiful look.

"Checkin' or savin's?"

"Checking."

The woman's long orange finger nails ticked and tapped away until the vibrato of the printer rang out through the busy bank as it spat out a summary of her meager funds. She was almost surprised when moths didn't fly out of the noisy machine. Even though she knew there wasn't enough, she needed to see it for herself.

Her wallet already hurt just thinking about giving the University of Ohio another two thousand three hundred and fifty five dollars, and seventy-three extra cents to make up for the bounced check from last month. As if the greedy bastards hadn't ravished her credit score enough.

The orange nailed woman tucked the paper through the small communication porthole and grimaced her saggy face. Wait, maybe she was smiling.

Looking down the page quickly Angelica's jaw fell slack.

"Wait. This is wrong," she leaned against the counter, trying to stick her head through the small rectangular cut-out in the glass, but instead only succeeded at smushing it against her forehead, "It says here that a check was deposited for..." she slid her finger across the page to show her the number, "that is a typo." though she hated to admit it, "My paycheck is $400 twice a month, not $4,000. They must have goofed up and wrote an extra zero by accident."

The woman arched a drawn-on orange eyebrow and took the page through the communication hole before turning back to the computer screen to type something. Then paused her search to say, "It says here that a check was deposited in your name by a company called Guardian LLC. with the memo 'scholarship'." The teller's head rolled to the side to quirk an eyebrow at Angelica's saucer sized eyes, "Now, is there somethin' else I can do for you or are you just gonna hold up my line all day?"

Angelica meekly argued, "Bu-but I work at Applebee's-"

"And what does that sign up there say?" The woman pointed to the 'Wells Fargo' sign above their heads. She raised one eyebrow a few millimeters, "where does it say up there that I give a damn?" She then turned to the rest of the line and waved a new patron to her booth.

As Angelica opened her mouth to argue with the rude gesture she felt a pair of hands slide over her hips before pulling her into a big bear hug, lifting her body effortlessly as she squealed and giggled.

The mocha haired, cerulean eyed, beautiful man over her shoulder was Jace. The love of Angelica's life.

She waved at the teller with a grateful smile, although she was fairly certain the woman flashed a far ruder gesture. But Angelica returned her attention to her boyfriend unperturbed.

Angelica felt her smile wobble slightly at that handsomely diabolical smirk on his slightly stubbly face.

Jace was perfect. He was a business major. They just so happened to take the same intro to biology class freshman year and were paired as lab partners. So for four hours every week Angelica had to keep herself from acting like a total moron. Until he finally asked her to come with him for coffee after class one day and sparks flew instantly.

He was applying to financial advisor jobs in Manhattan and Angelica planned to follow him to Colombia University to pursue a doctorate and become the neuroscientist to discover where spontaneous creative thought came from.

They planned to get married once they got stable jobs in the city, or at least Angelica did.

Jace, he, uh.

Let's just say they were raised very differently.

Where Angelica was raised with modesty and fear in the face of PDA under God's vindictive wrath, Jace was raised with a certain level of comfort around the concept of coitus. His mom and dad were life long New Yorkers and absentee parents so he basically raised himself on the streets of Brooklyn. This meant he had plenty of experience around the fairer sex. Angelica wasn't jealous, what he did before he met her was completely different from what they had now and it didn't affect their future in any way.

It just happened to be an area of their relationship that caused the most trouble.

The only thing from her father's preaching that ever stuck in Angelica's head was the concept of abstinence until marriage.

Angelica's theoretical husband could sleep with loose women all day every day until he met her. It wasn't a religious thing; she simply wanted her husband to be the only guy she ever slept with. Then she wouldn't have anything to compare to. She would never want to mess up her theoretical children's theoretical lives by leaving them for a beautiful Brazilian named Josè Estrada: a fire eater who spent his young life running with gypsies and surfing each and every day to sculpt his perfectly tanned body into a living Adonis.

But enough theoretical adultery…

"You'll never guess what happened!" She kissed Jace's scraggily cheek, then rubbed a hand brusquely over his freshly trimmed buzz cut, "Someone accidentally deposited a huge check in my account."

Just as he opened his mouth to answer Angelica's excitement crashed with a rushed realization, "-maybe it's illegal. To keep it, I mean. It could be money laundering or extortion or something." The spot between her eyebrows creased ever so slightly, "Maybe I'll just call the cops-"

"-No way!" his eyes jumped to her little blue shoulder bag, "If you touch that phone I'm tackling you." His bulky arm wrapped around her shoulders, smooshing her face tightly to his chest chattering away with his thick Brooklyn accent as he lead her out the door into the crisp autumn air, "we're goin' to Europe!"

Jace sounded somehow more excited than Angelica felt. That was all he needed to say.

 

... 

 

Stretched like a cat across Jace's black faux leather couch was a girl with medium length hair spilling over her boyfriend's lap. His fingers laced through her hair as they cracked up at some hilariously (pathetically?) bad sci-fi movie called 'Sharktopus vs Dinocrock'.

The credits started rolling when Jace began speaking, not for a second looking from the screen, "we could get married ya know. Over there, I mean. It would be the chance of a lifetime." He swooped one arm out in front of them. "Think about it: a six months honeymoon all across Europe. Who can say they did that?"

She wanted to smile but the apprehensive murmur in her heart told her hold her horses. So she gave a terse smirk and rolled her eyes up to look at him, "oh stop, you're just getting my hopes up."

He slid her hand into his and curled his fingers over her warm ones, using them to warm his perpetually chilly fingers. Pale blue eyes fell onto her deep cerulean. "I do mean it Ang. We should get married over there so we don't have to deal with our parents anymore." He smirked, admiring her face lovingly.

Angelica's heart went aflutter. "…Seriously?"

"Serious as a heart attack." He promised, smoothing a thumb across her cheek, crossing his heart with the other hand's index finger.

Angelica's smile ebbed to widen. "Lets do it then," her eyes glittered with excitement, "I love you."

Dropping a hand low over the side of her hip he responded by slowly rolling his thumb up and down over the fabric before one catching it and pulled it up, letting his cool skin flit across hers. She bit her lip, but he leaned down and kissed the protruding flesh, easing her lip between his in this bizarre upside down position.

"I love you too _Mrs_. Cafone." He mumbled the words against her lips. Small kisses trailed from her lips to ear before taking it between his teeth.

She rolled her eyes with a disappointed sigh. She knew where this was going. His fingers danced over her back then pulled up her shirt, brushing his fingertips under the wire of her bra.

She shouldered him away with a little squirming dance and shot to a standing position awkwardly. But even as she tried to escape he gently guided a hand over her wrist, pulling her to his lap like a desperate octopus. He was something out of the exorcist tonight. He latched his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. With one arm encircling her hips the other hand hooked its fingers around the waistband of her sweatpants.

This time she shoved away with force, again jumping to her feet with a small scowl.

Pain blossoming in her chest. She remained silent for a second as his face dropped into an angry frown.

"I knew you weren't serious!" her voice broke the brittle tension.

He groaned and flopped back to the couch with his hands over his face. "We've been together for four fuckin' years. It's not like God's gonna send you to Hell if you do stuff with me if we're gettin' married anyways." His hands slid away only enough to glare at her through his fingers. "Your parents really screwed you up."

That blossoming pain again. It was the feeling of being unimportant, when emotions and feelings don't matter to the person who mattered most in the world it hurts like none other. Angelica was angry. But rather than argue, she came to a more logical conclusion:

"Then let's break up." She paused to gage his expression as is shifted from offensive to defensive. "There's no reason to be with someone who isn't right for you. Which I'm obviously not." It hurt like Hell, but this wasn't a principle she was willing to budge on. "Don't marry me if you don't like the way I do things, or the way my parents do things. I can talk about them however I want, but no one else has that right. Not even you."

Jace knew better than to talk when she was on a rant like this, he'd just wait until she finished to apologize for the comment about her parents.

A few tears dropped from her face. "It's not like I have you caged here all to my self." Memory of his past infidelities dashed across her thoughts. "As you've proven time and time again." She folded her arms and turned to storm out into the hallway with that final accusation.

Maybe tonight was a good night to break the 'no drinking cheap wine until after midterms' rule…

"That's where you're wrong Angelica." He confided softly, "I _am_ trapped. And I hate that I'm trapped. Even if I wanted to, breaking up isn't an option."

"How romantic." Angelica's hand fell to the door handle with the full intent of turning it and strutting away, but instead it hesitated just long enough to hear Jace speak,

"Even if you don't like it, that's how it is. We are supposed to go to Europe together. Not some pair of exes fighting over stupid shit. I'm not gonna break up with you because I know what's waiting over that huge ocean is better than some stupid fight about sex."

She didn't want to, in fact she told herself she wouldn't, but now she was turned around facing him as he eyed her nervously, unsure of what went on behind the screen of her eyes.

"This isn't going to change when we land in France." She explained firmly.

"Alright, alright." he held up his hands in defeat. "My bad. I just figured you'd want a little of this after saying yes to my romantic proposal." He sniffed like a shunned child.

Angelica whiffed an airy laugh, he cracked a smile. He could be such a brat sometimes.

 

 ...

 

The days before the trip went slowly yet quickly at the same time. Finals ended so Angelica had a few weeks of chilly winter weather to spend with her fiancé (oh she just loved calling him that!) before they would leave for their new life in Europe.

Jace was great during that time. He pretty much lived at her place for winter break, making a total of four of them in a one bedroom apartment.

It was certainly…. Cozy.

Angelica's roommate, Lydia, who also happened to be her best friend thought Jace was the hottest thing to ever bless the world ("Anatomically perfect… must…mate….now…"). Even for a physics major, the redhead was admittedly a bit of a whirlwind of vapid illusions. She was one of those people who could become friends with her worst enemy, she never held grudges or got too angry about anything.

On the other hand, Angelica's other roommate, Kristine, hated when Jace stayed over. She thought he was an idiot because he was a business major instead of a more 'practical' major in the sciences like the three of them.

 

...

 

Their flight landed in France, the city of love.

For Jace, at least.

Girls followed him like lost dogs. Angelica tried to ignore them knowing that he wouldn't give them the time of day, but her defenses were growing weak as she saw the glimmers of smiles and suggestive winks he would dish out like candy on Halloween.

They went to see a play for their Ancient Arts class. Phantom of the Opera. She tried to argue that 'Phantom' was written in the 1900's, so it wasn't really 'ancient', but no one would hear it.

Angelica watched in awe of the beautiful costumes and music. She had never been very fond of the performance arts, but this was really something else. At the end she could do nothing but stand with the other patrons and clap her little heart out.

"That was awful!" Lydia, tossed her program into the garbage as we left the theater. "How could a girl be that dumb? I mean the phantom was a total monster!"

Angelica wholly disagreed and shrugged, "hey, I thought Erik was kind of sweet. Everyone rejected him because he was different, but inside he had a beautiful soul. Doesn't that count for something?"

Lydia looked like Angelica had just told her Santa Claus was actually a hobo in a red suit. "No way! He, like, killed people. Like, a lot of people! And then he tried to kill Raul! He was the only normal character in the whole show."

They walked out of the theater onto the street with the dozen other students who were either raving or ranting their personal review.

"Eh, I disagree. Raul was supposed to signify a choice. Of course Christine, the poor girl with no family, chose the super cute, super wealthy, baritone with everything going for him." Angelica watched Lydia's eyes snap to Jace as he walked ahead to avoid being wrapped into the discussion, "But his personality was pretty flat if you ask me. Phantom was charming and talented, plus he helped Christine _become_ what Raul fell in love with. It seems a little unfair to-"

Lydia leeched onto Jace's arm with a saccharine tone that made Angelica's teeth hurt. "-What do _you_ think, Jace? Do you think the lovely damsel should have ended up with the good guy or the bad guy?"

He gave his girlfriend a cross glance to judge her opinion. But she only smirked and rose a thought-provoking eyebrow. He made no move to brush off the overly affectionate roommate as he answered with his typical blasé attitude, "I think that Christine was in love with the Phantom, but both he and Christine knew that Raul was better for her, and that's why he let her go in the end."

Angelica could have clapped, she was so proud.

"Eww! So you think that the bad guy won?" Lydia scrunched her face up at him cutely.

"No, I think they both lost." He replied with a hint of mystique, "I do think that Raul got the girl in the end. But the Phantom left an indelible mark on her so Raul could never really win her at all." Jace was obviously trying not to look over his shoulder at Angelica's shocked expression.

What a depressing outlook! It was so deep and beautiful and… sexy? Angelica rushed to catch up with the pair and they stopped at a little sandwich shop.

Jace didn't speak to Angelica for the rest of the day.

In fact, it would be another week before they saw each other. Between classes and exploring the cities neither seemed to have time for romance.

That also happened to be when the nightmares began.

Angelica had never been one to dream much. People would discuss their exciting nighttime adventures and all she could do was sit back and enjoy their stories. Hence the anxiety over her newly evolved sense of whimsy. None were ever the same. Some seemed to last whole lifetimes. She would be born, she would get to know her parents, she would learn about the world and a whole new language, her parents would die, she would fall in love. And they always seemed to end the same: with her dying horribly. Not only would she die horribly but she would also die under the same, or very similar, circumstances. It was to the point where the dreams felt more like déjà vu.

As the days passed Angelica tried to bring up her strange nightmares with Jace but he was a total zombie. It was like their relationship no longer mattered to him since landing in France. He was flinchy and awkward around her and he would wave her off any time she tried to talk about her night terrors.

Ten days into their trip and the group was now in Germany. Jace was distant and callous, spending most of his time with friends instead of his girlfriend. Which was why Angelica was surprised when a tooth-achingly dulcet voice jerked her out of a 'Neuroanatomical Coloring Book'.

"Ohhhh Angelica!" Lydia sung with a smile that could kill a cat. "There's an EDM concert tonight and Kristine wants to get faded. Look!" she pulled out some small bag and removed some white tablets with one star in the center. "It's called 'blue star' it's supposed to be as good as Molly!"

Angelica's chest tightened fearfully at the sight. "Get rid of that!" She swatted at the bag with her textbook but Lydia pulled the baggy out of range. Angelica glanced over her shoulders frantically to look out for police or the Feds or a professor or her mom.

The coast was clear.

 _For now_.

"Oh quit being such a lame-o. Mommy and daddy will never know." Lydia held that seductively dangerous smile, "Oh, and _Jace_ is gonna be there..."

 

 ....

 

" _Pflehhh_!" Swoshh. " _Hic-plehhg_!" Frushh.

Each time she retched there seemed to be more in her stomach to expel. She hung her head hung over the toilet and sobbed. She couldn't remember anything from the past few hours, only flickers like on an old projector.

What was she doing here? She wasn't a drug user! She never abstained from alcohol, but _ecstasy_?! She was a future neuroscientist! And she came to some damn rave this to get some stupid boy's attention?

Another heave of muscles wracked her train of thought.

Oh how far she had fallen.

As Angelica sobbed and gagged alone in a stall she heard the door to the bathroom squeeze open and a pair of voices whispering to one another conspiratorially.

"...Do you think she'll be mad at me?" One silken feminine voice echoed on the tiles.

"You're not serious are you? She's in love with him! Just 'cause a guy's got a dick doesn't mean you can screw him," a valley girl slurred judgmentally, "I thought you guys were friends, what's wrong with you!"

Angelica recognized these voices. Lydia and Kristine. And they weren't talking about some a stranger.

They were talking about her.

"Oh my god is that blood?!" Lydia shrieked, stumbling backward into Kristine, who pushed her off. "Holy shit it is!"

"No way, it's probably just jello or something." The deeper voiced girl determined. "Lets figure out where Ang is lurking and get out of this dump."

Angelica rolled over onto her back, stretching her arm under the door to try and get their attention only to watch their highlighter colored sneakers squeak into the glitter littered hallway. Her hand slapped the ground pitifully.

Lydia spun around muttering 'wait a second' to Kristine.

"Ang?" Lydia pulled Angelica's door open and the blood drained from her pretty freckled face. For a second Angelica thought she would puke all over her. That would truly be the cherry on top of her night.

"Oh my god! Kris! Call an ambulance!"

Angelica didn't remember much after that, just peacefulness.

 

 ...

 

Shockingly clear red eyes faded into dull orbs.

Alucard rolled his eyes.

Seres's 'episodes' were growing more frequent in number and length. These strange occurrences where Seres Victoria would drop off the side of the earth must have begun before his return to reality. Integra attempted explaining them away, but from where he stood it was just plain rude.

They were mid-conversation! Couldn't that French fairy-assed twat wait another fifteen… twenty minutes? It's not like she was going anywhere.

Boredom swiftly took over when she got like this. Extra time made Alucard think. And he hated thinking. Especially with all of these strange killings lately. They had him itching for answers. All were virgins, many of them blondes with blue eyes. This normally would not have gotten Hellsing's attention. The mild threats made on Integra's own life were what provoked Alucard into saying something.

The very thought made his skin prickle dangerously. No one threatened Integra, or Seres, unless they wanted a real fight. No one really knew the agony they beckoned when they provoked Alucard.

His beautiful blonde virgins. They were his only pride. They were everything to him, and he was everything to them.

Integra took on the role of 'mom' since his return and Seres had taken on the role of 'sister', though he truly wished it didn't have to be that way.

She was the little sister who was dating the guy she ate who lives inside her head.

It wasn't so much that he hated Pip Bernadotte, in fact he admired him for refusing to become a vampire like Seres had. Alucard simply hated the competition. It was a tug-of-war. On one side there was Alucard trying to speak to Seres about a rather pertinent case. The other side was Pip, still attempting to show Seres his love and affection long after death.

Integra explained that Seres had bonded quite considerably with the lone soul residing within her during Alucard's long absence and that she would go on these mental trips into her own mind as means of communication. The communications were schizophrenic by nature. She would daze out and become completely unreachable for extended periods of time.

And now here Alucard was. Waiting. Yet another thing he abhorred. Everything had to be put on hold for her lovey-dovey trances.

All he wanted to know was whether or not they were going to Ireland. If he didn't receive an answer in...

5…

4….

3...

"Quick! The peanut butter!" The blonde shouted throwing her arms around excitedly as if swatting spiders. "Get it away! Get it awa- " She froze mid swat and blinked her pretty eyes at Alucard who appeared smack dab between amused and honestly fearful for her mental health.

Sere's whole body relaxed. "Oh… you're still here." A shit-eating grin appeared as she scratched the back of her head nervously. "Sorry! We were just- I was just-" Her whole body sank, defeated. "…You know what? Never mind."

"I see you've set aside this special time to embarrass yourself. Well done." He clapped as amusement clearly won the battle over his expression. "And of course I'm still here. I _live_ here." Alucard grew slightly more serious, or as serious as Alucard ever really got. "As I was saying before you so rudely interrupted," Seres seemed to shrink away uneasily, poking her index fingers together with a sheepish smile, "What are the details on the IRA case and do we get to take the EC120 to Belfast?"

Seres stood straight up and hit her fist to her open palm then snapped, "Right! The helipad is still under construction from _the_ _last time_ ," she added accusingly, Alucard's smile broadened at the memory. "So if Sir Integra gives us the order then we would have to take public transport." Alucard's expression took a turn for sinister. Seres didn't like it, remembering vividly the time he had her locked away in a coffin under the belly of a plane. She still suffered from intense nightmares.

Seres then gave a vague wave and started running toward the stairs. "Bu-but we're not going to do that, so let me check with Sir Integra again about the details and I'll get back to you later."

She had taken to wearing longer versions of her typical crimson uniform so when she barreled up the stairs he couldn't see her lovely backside peaking out from under her micro skirt. Alucard didn't approve.

"Oh! And I almost forgot!" She spun then snapped to attention before calling out, "Sir Integra wishes to speak with you at your earliest convenience."

The words echoed off of every hard surface of the basement before the door clicked closed.

Alucard's semi permanent smile wavered slightly, wondering what he'd done to gain an audience with his master this evening.

 

...

 

It was cold. Everything was cold. Her fingers, toes, lips, ears and nose. The scratchy wool babushka she wore over her head did nothing to fight the bone piercing temperature. Hard slate was somehow comfortable beneath her head.

There was yelling in the distance. The soft cries of a woman joined the echoes, they sounded somehow closer.

"Artemy, побеги́!" The female's voice came forcefully from the left.

The woman was telling her to run. Angelica's eyes fluttered open, her vantage point from beneath a bed was clear enough to understand that a murder had just taken place.

There was a woman, arm stretched out desperately toward her with blood everywhere. It took a moment to notice the man on all fours over her, he was so dark that he blended in with the shadows of night. A long tongue seemed to elongate further to lap up blood from the woman's cracked skull as it seeped everywhere.

Luminescent crimson eyes pierced the dank cold night as they met hers wordlessly. For a moment she thought he was going to kill her too. But he hesitated, only for a heartbeat, but in that hesitation she knew she was safe. He dipped his head back down to the woman below and continued tearing at her flesh with grotesque slurping. It gave Angelica a chance to pull herself further under the bed to hide. She bumped into something cold and squishy.

The marred flesh of a man's face was blue with death. There was a drawn, dehydrated look to him. He looked horrifyingly familiar and suddenly cold fear rippled through her icy veins begging her to get the hell away.

Subconscious fear drove her to scuttle out from under the bed, toward the murderer. The man's black hair was long and straight and fell to the floor where he was haunched. He slowly raised his head, seemingly frustrated by her inability to remain still while he consumed the woman.

But she didn't fear him, at least, not nearly as much as the dead man under the bed.

Angelica came to understand that she was only a child when she looked at her tiny soft hands. She looked back up to the monstrous creature and watched as he returned to his meal. Rather than run or cry, she stood and ambled out of the door behind him with zero urgency.

"Artemy." This deep velveteen voice came from behind her, "Ţi-e frică?"*

Angelica couldn't understand what he said, but she turned to face him anyway, feeling nothing.

Not fear, not happiness, not apprehension, not aggression. Just nothing. This response in itself seemed to answer his question as sharp teeth emerged in a wide smile. Out of seemingly nowhere a large hand fell over her head affectionately, familiarly, springing a few strands of platinum blonde hair out from under the babushka in front of her eyes. She blinked then looked up at the exceedingly tall being towering above. He did not look so frightening now without the blood all over his face. Quite to the contrary, he looked somewhat troubled.

"Vino cu mine, copil." He said, anguished smile unfaltering.

'Come with me, child.' She translated automatically in her head. She couldn't _really_ understand what he said, _could she_?

"Что вы сказали?" she uttered before covering her mouth, unsure of what language just came from her mouth.**

A laugh danced in his deep red eyes, "Rusă?"

Angelica had never been good at learning new languages, but suddenly she was able to pull apart the core of the man's words as if it was nothing. It was almost like she had heard it many times before. He had asked if she was Russian. For all she knew, he was right, so she tried to agree. But this strange language came instead of her common American English, "Да, я считаю."***

Some kind of emotion came over the dangerous man. Relief maybe?

"Ne vom intilni din nou, fetita." The large hand slid from the top of her head and the man dissipated into black nothingness, fading into the shadows.****

Looking around with perverse calm at the two bodies that lay in dehydrated messes on the wooden floor she felt the initial emotions of empathy and concern turn quickly to apathy and relief.

For whatever reason she felt more desolation at that man's departure than at the death of her own parents.

 

 

Angelica's eyes slid open, the strange nightmare evaporating. Her head felt woozy, her stomach of weak constitution. But she was alive and far more thankful than she really expected to be.

Wait. What exactly happened? The last thing she remembered was...

"She's up!" A pair of girly brown eyes popped into view. "You were all like 'bluh!' And we were like 'woah she's fuckin' twisted' then you like passed out and we were so freaked!"

Angelica tried to laugh at Lydia's rendition of the saga but it was too exhausting so she let her eyes flutter closed and tried to will herself back into that dream.

The panic stricken screech of a man sent her scrambling, eyes wide.

"You gave her WHAT?" Jace yelled toward a traitorous Kristine who Angelica hadn't even noticed in the corner of the white hospital room.

"It was just a little Molly! She was being a total drag! It's not like you were any help _Don Juan_." Kristine shot back, shoving Jace's shoulder hard.

"You're disgusting. I can't believe..." Angelica couldn't hear his low accusation, though she was sure it described them both well.

"What did you just say!" Kristine screeched like a harpy.

Lydia frowned and muttered random funny things about Kristine's 'walk of shame' outfit to try and distract her. Angelica closed her eyes and listened as breakable, and probably very expensive, objects were thrown about and trays were flipped and not so nice things were yelled as Lydia tried to calm the pair.

An unnaturally tense calm settled over the room. A presence seemed to silence the arguing pair as a new, warm, peaceful voice intercepted Jace's angry accusations.

"I insist the two of you take your issues elsewhere. My patience is wearing thin." The thinly veiled threat was terrifying in his gentle, Northern European accented tenor. She opened one eye to see the blurred image of a man of medium build wearing a lab coat, "Alright now," he chirped, far happier than he seemed moments ago, "if you two are quite done, you may leave." When no one seemed to react, the doctor cleared his throat.

"You haff to the count of _one_ to get out of my sight." He growled threateningly in a low, calm voice.

Kristine and Lydia disappeared from the room instantly and Angelica was left alone with her (ex?) boyfriend and the doctor whose blonde hair and handsome mid-thirties face were something out of vogue magazine. He tinkered with her IV bags and took some notes from the monitor on which they hung.

"You're a very lucky girl, Angelica." He offered with a sincere smile, "by some miracle you managed to survive the night with only 10% blood volume. A physiological impossibility." She stilled. 10% blood volume? He hovered a hand over the top of her head, she could feel his body heat emanating from the appendage, "I'm going to need your signature here, here and here." He indicated with his finger across some document dismissively.

Angelica's eyes opened fully and raised an eyebrow at Jace who offered nothing in his expression. Her voice felt caught, but she somehow managed to croak, "what happened to me?"

The man glared at the paper then closed his eyes with a bright smile. "Nothing you should worry about. You reacted rather poorly to the cocaine-"

"Cocaine?!" she screamed squeakily. Jace twitched and folded his arms, looking away from her, dejected.

"Yes," the doctor answered simply as if she should have known what substances were in her body at all times. Angelica wanted to die of embarrassment, what if her parents found out? What if she was kicked off the trip? What if she was expelled?

"…Your stomach and throat were riddled with acid burns..."

Her lips parted in silent shock. She didn't feel sick. This had to be a joke.

"It's not a joke, Angelica."

Her eyes widened.

"Somehow your body has completely regenerated itself. Your body is perfectly intact, which is why you must sign this." His personality was cataclysmic. His calm, honeyed demeanor was somehow dark and frightening as if he wouldn't spare a thought about cutting her blood fusion tubes and walking away if she proved insubordinate.

Angelica lifted the sheet with weak stick like fingers, dragging the needle in her hand with her, and started to read. Heat from Jace's guilty stare was highly distracting.

"What's this part about a 'study'?" she slid her finger across the sentence with her finger so the doctor could explain it.

The blonde man didn't even look before brushing her off, "that's nothing to worry about, your case is simply wracking my superiors minds so they would like to use your data in some research."

It was pretty weird that she healed so quickly from something that should have killed her.

She signed the paper with her sloppy signature and initialed in a few places then handed it back to him, eyeing his lab coat with her brows scrunched together.

Then she realized something out of place, "where's you're name tag, doctor...?"

A smile fought for power over the frown that wanted to overtake his face. The world around her seemed to melt as he pushed down the plunger of a syringe into her IV.

There was no rush to fight. She felt no emotions, only emptiness.

And all she could think was that she should have just listened to her crazy parents after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * "Are you afraid?"  
> ** "What did you say?"  
> *** "Yes, I think."  
> **** "We will meet again, little girl."


	3. Santa Muerte

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Santa Muerte (n.):_

_"Our Lady of the Holy Death" is_ _personification of death,_

_she is associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotee._

_Typically, Santa Muerte is seen with a scythe on one hand, a globe in the other._

_She is not sanctioned by the Catholic Church._

* * *

Silvery blonde hair glistened in the pale white moonlight. Azure eyes sharpened like that of an avian huntress. She slammed the thin sheet of paper onto her desk, glaring at the vampire who lounged across from her in a red Victorian style duster as vivacious as his personality.

"It was stolen from the safe house." Integra Fairbrook Wingate Hellsing proclaimed with an edge to her voice. "This was _your_ responsibility! What do you plan to do about this?"

Alucard loved to see her so worked up over nothing.

The vampire watched the fury in her eyes for a moment longer before shrugging, observing a particular buxom draculina who lingered just over his shoulder with his eyes. The 'problem' was tended to. Integra had no reason to worry over a useless weapon.

"Master?" Seres poked his shoulder, pulling him from his eye locked daze. Alucard grinned up at her menacingly from the corner of his eye. She shoved her hands behind her back with an innocent smile.

No matter what form she took in any of her lifetimes she always knew exactly how to get on his nerves.

"The problem has already been dealt with." He addressed the aging woman across the desk, leaning slightly closer for emphasis. "My master."

The tall woman then covertly eyed Seres with a hint of concern shining brightly in her dulling blue eyes. "And you're sure the weapon has been rendered useless by this..." She chose her words carefully, "Action?"

Alucard had admitted to Sir Integra earlier in the year that he hadn't changed Seres on a mere whim.

There were always more pieces to the puzzle than the box described with Alucard. A complicated mess of broken glass that was nearly impossible to navigate without cutting yourself or finding pieces that didn't belong. This admission was far more of a relief than a concern in Integra's mind. He had taken just one more precaution against an invisible enemy that lived in the shadows, lurking and waiting for a weak point to try and eliminate Hellsing Organization. Or worse: Integra herself.

Though it was bold for anyone to try and steal such a valuable piece from their storage unit, Integra was comforted by Alucard's assurances. There was no reason to fear much of anything when you had two of the world's most powerful monsters living under your care.

Another broad smirk bared Alucard's sharpened teeth in an unintentionally aggressive show. "Have I ever given you a reason to distrust my loyalty to you, my master?"

Integra held a cigarillo to her lips and pulled a deep drag; the crackling of tobacco becoming incinerated filled the silence. Alucard didn't particularly enjoy her affinity toward the substance that would certainly shorten her already waning lifespan and had made his disapproval _very_ apparent on a number of occasions. In her typical fashion, she ignored his _ever_ so affectionate concern with a cold stare and mocking quip.

Integra seemed to study him for a moment before releasing the smoke cloud from the cage of her lips. It floated to mingle with the beautiful moon, creating clouds in an otherwise flawless sky.

"You will recover it to avoid any problems in the future." She commanded the pair. "From the information we've been provided, a small faction of the IRA have been killing young women and stealing sacred artifacts. I'm unsure as to why they've begun crawling out of their holes again but surveillance footage from last night confirms claim against them." Integra's eyes swooped up to the blonde standing behind Alucard pointedly. "Seres, you will remain at the manor."

The quirky blonde, who saluted with her one remaining arm, smiled brightly. "Yes Sir!"

Her eyes then slid to her dark haired companion who never looked reluctant to apprehend, and likely kill, a few dozen people.

"Alucard," She rolled the cigar between her teeth with a small smirk at the prospect. "Fetch."

...

Saints, demons, the devil, the pope, Mary of Nazareth. These were all objects of worship that stole the light from God in those lesser Christian sects. Prayers to profane paradigms such as reincarnation, or papal holiness. It was sinful. The godless musings of a heathen.

To believe that The Mother, The Virgin herself could be reborn. It was a disguising nightmare indeed. Preposterous. Yet Integra Hellsing believed in such unfounded talk.

This false idol, the demon named Alucard, was rumored to have changed this this supposed reincarnation of Mary into a soulless monster like himself.

How _dare_ they spout such indecency!

She could _never_ be Mary of Nazareth. _She_ was no innocent. Born of sin and so weak of constitution to fall for the world of darkness to escape the foul sins of humanity. It was a human weakness, not the sanctity of a saint.

It was simply unfathomable…

Until they met the true incarnation of Mary.

His servant happened across her entirely by mistake during his time in the United States with other disciples. The vampire insisted time and time again that his beloved pastor meet the fair creature.

…It was only a passing glance inside of a university bookstore.

But in that brief moment when he looked into those eyes it was plain to see that that he was in the presence of something greater than any holy cross or artifact.

Her soul completely pure, untouched by the evils of humanity, was utterly beautiful.

The sin of her birth was forgiven by God Himself to give humanity another chance. Blessed is God with such boundless mercy for his loving children! The pastor's mind began turning. Testing was necessary to determine how to utilize this treasure trove to its fullest magnitude. For the time being, he would have to watch over the girl to ensure she didn't make any decisions that could tarnish her standing with God.

After all, she was only human.

…

 

" _Tsvetok." She held out the small purple flower in her hand to try and teach the dark haired man a few words of her own language. But he was selfish, unwilling to learn. She had picked up his native language easily as a young girl. But she could not hold such a thing against him. She was one of the lucky ones._

_His large, cold, dead hand took the pretty little flower and spun it between his fingers, but he did not try to repeat the word._

_Russian words didn't sound right in his mouth when he said them anyway, or so she convinced herself._

" _Artemy."_

_The young girl's ears perked at the sound of her name, though she did not want to seem indulgent so she hid the pleasure at hearing her name spoken by her favorite person. Instead she lifted her eyes to his attentively._

" _Why is it you do not fear my presence?" The vampire asked somberly. His darkness didn't quite belong in this place of light and flowers. He seemed so… sad._

_The little blond thought hard for a moment, glancing her hands that mindlessly began weaving the strands of grass. She wasn't entirely sure what he meant. "You have never given me a reason to fear."_

_The large man loomed from above. He was tense and somewhat troglodytic in his mannerisms. The way he moved reminded Artemy of the hunched shoulders of a wild animal as he sauntered closer with this resolute expression._

" _The blood from your parents bodies soaked your clothes. I would have killed you too had they not…" He trailed off. But Artemy knew what he wanted to say._

_Rather than discuss the way they met, Artemy chose to shuffle on her knees to get closer to his shins as he fell to his knees, closer to her eye level. "Tell me your name."_

" _You already know my name, little girl."_

" _Tell me again, you say it better." She commanded with the absolute veneration of a nine year old._

" _Vlad." He said plainly, feeling no real attachment to the name._

_Fair blue eyes liquefied with disappointment, but her face did not move to show such an unbecoming emotion. "The whole thing."_

_A smile creeped across his face slowly. It wasn't that he had grown soft for the girl, it was only that she admired him in a way that made it difficult not to indulge his already massive ego._

_He hadn't intended to save her that night. The purpose was to feed. It just happened to strike a nerve when he saw that human feeling his five-year-old daughter while that detestable woman watched._

_But now, as her round little face looked up to him, almost as an idol, he could tell she survived the memories, just as he had. Though he hoped she would grow out of her admiration of him one day. Perhaps one of these days he would appear at the Orthodox Church's door and she would run away like her natural instincts demanded. That day would be a loss in his life, but it would keep her alive. She would live a long, happy life as a human then die like a human._

_So, once more, he delighted in telling the little girl his name. His full name, as she desired._

" _Vladimir Dracula."_

_..._

_Disconcerted_ was not quite the right word for how Angelica felt upon waking from that dream.

Perhaps 'horrified' (disturbed, frightened, confused, _utterly panicked_ ) would work better for that brief moment of silence between waking up in a tub of blood wearing nothing but her own skin (which she desperately wanted to jump out of) and leaping out of it, screaming like a little girl. She jumped out of the tub in one frightful lurch and covered her body with her hands and hair as much as humanly possible. Much of her body was caked in coagulated red goo. Her skin crawled at the realization. Throwing her head to and fro she searched an escape.

There was no one else around.

The newly painted, er, _blood splattered_ room was pure white with thick black fixtures. It was a classic, eighteenth century style room with a small black piano and a drawing table in one corner and a bed situated in the center. Aside from the scent of coppery blood in the air, the room felt clean.

Angelica turned to examine the tub she had just crawled from to find that it was gone. She looked down at herself to see that she was no longer in a morph suit of blood. She was thoroughly confused.

"I see you've finally woken."

Angelica jumped at the sound of the serene voice and her hands began to tremble where they covered her body. She was totally nude and he was fully clothed. The scare tactic was clear- he was in charge here.

Before she could stutter a word he stepped carefully toward her with his hands up in surrender like she was a dangerous, rabid raccoon, "if I have yet to harm you while you slept, what makes you think I will do so now that you're awake?"

A thick gulp. He had a point.

"Wha-what do you want?" she squeaked pitifully, her voice five octaves too high, curling her body away to hide her more feminine areas. A smile pulled the side of his lips.

_Creep_.

"I want to study you." He explained casually, "To," he was suddenly a breath away from her face chaining her gaze to his without ever physically touching her, "see what you have to offer."

Vomit rose in her throat at what he suggested but choked it down, "please don't hurt me." God she sounded pathetic.

Another smile warmed his fine features. "Schotzi."

She leaned away to reconstruct her personal space. Europeans didn't really know much about that concept did they?

He reached out to touch her face like he had in the hospital, then his hand hesitated heavily as if he were resisting some invisible force field. "No," he seemed to correct himself, "you're more like a lost Testament. Something one never thought to seek because no one knew it to exist. And yet," his smile broadened sinisterly, "here you are. More valuable than anything else in the known world."

Angelica twitched away. This was totally asinine, "please let me go home, if this is some kind of prank it's not funny. I'm not laughing," her knees began shaking uncontrollably, "I just want to see my parents." Angelica was petrified, shaking and bare bottom nude. She wanted Jace. He would come rescue her from whatever this guy planned to do.

"No one is laughing." His face was suddenly solemn. "You do not trust what I am saying? What a shame." He shook his head minutely. "I have an offer for you Angelica." She waited, still naked as the day she was born and horribly uncomfortable with it,

"You will stay here, and you will endure whatever tests I would like to perform on you." She began shaking her head 'no' before he held up a finger, "if you refuse, I will torture and kill your friends and family one by one ensuring that you are framed for each of their murders. Then once you are imprisoned in a mental institution I will take over your care and conduct my research regardless of your decision today."

Hopelessness cradled her heart. On one hand she would never see her family again and most likely endure horrendous torture. On the other hand she would have a little bit of time with her family before he killed them and used her anyway. But how did she know he could actually hurt them? He didn't know them. This guy wasn't even American. He might be bluffing. He actually sounded somewhat Slavic, or German. Fine, maybe she didn't know enough about European languages to even know the difference. But at least she knew he wasn't from her home country.

"I don't believe you." She whispered, haunted.

Suddenly images appeared across each wall of the room.

Staring, no, gaping at the images of her mom and dad at church, Jace and Lydia talking at a pizza place in front of Santo Pietro's Cathedral with argumentative scowls. Huh, apparently the trip went on without her... Wait. How long was she missing? They were already in Rome?

Hadn't Jace seen this guy push some drug into her IV bag? Why didn’t he try to stop him?

Angelica's eyes fluttered closed, hoping this was just some bizarre nightmare. To her great dismay, when they reopened, the scene around her was calm once more. The images across the walls were gone. She took a deep, trembling breath and nodded. Agreeing with his terms.

"You will resume your college courses immediately under my supervision." With those words the tall blonde turned on his heel and strode out of the door without looking back.

When she heard the doorstopper click she began tearing the room apart to find a way out. There had to be another way out.

There was nothing. Only a nun's white habit and an old tattered looking veil, all of which she threw on immediately to avoid any awkward naked conversations. She left the veil. It was grimy and unnecessary.

She continued searching through out the day, or night, who knows, there was no clock or windows in there anyway. She found that there was a massive closet filled with identical nun's robes and another door that lead to a massive bathroom with a shower and bath.

After what felt like days of running around, feeling hungry and uncomfortable, she finally fell asleep on the bed, wishing that there was some way to contact her parents.

...

_**Grrrglee-eep** _

The pain in Angelica's stomach was becoming intolerable. She was being starved.

Last night, the man had come in with a razor, an electric shaver, and a pair of scissors. She cried the entire time as she watched her hair float to the ground. She squirmed away only to have a pair of hands appear on her upper arms to throw her back in the chair. When she looked up there was no one holding her.

The more she struggled, the more pain was inflicted with the razor. He scraped it against her scalp as if he was trying to eliminate any trace of her hair's existence. As she fought, he informed her that, "the longer you fight, the longer it will take to prepare your next meal."

When he left, she was alone to stare at the wall. So many thoughts bounced around her mind. What were her parents doing right now? Was it Sunday? Would they be at work? Her thoughts bounced to Jace, although he had been a rotten boyfriend and unfaithful friend, she wanted him there with her, to help get out of this terrible place. Her hands floated to her bristly scalp of their own accord. Her head felt like the scraggily skin of a lizard.

She frowned. No, it was more like an inverted smile. This was the mother of all frowns.

She was so over crying.

Not one more tear would be shed in this stupid place. The next time she cried it would be out of pure happiness rather than the pathetic tears of a damsel in distress. For now, she would play by his rules. But one day, she would get out of this place.

…

Wordlessly, he entered the room and stood in the doorway for a few moments.

"Are you ready to behave?"

The words seemed to take shape next to her ear as she sat staring at the white walls. She nodded numbly, finally giving in to her need for nourishment. It was decided that she would take any chance to eat or drink. The myelin sheath of your neurons were prone to thinning when you were starved in turn causing your reactions and complex reasoning to fail.

Yes, this was necessary.

Angelica didn't hear from the man for several hours, that is, until he brought all of her textbooks to her with a computer and a rolling tray of assorted of fruits and veggies. She reached out to pick up a particularly enticing apple before an arm appeared out of thin air to catch her wrist. She shrieked. The hand disappeared into thin air and she watched her captor nervously where he stood across the room. What was he going to make her do to gain access to food?

"Hereafter you will address me as Hausmeister." He announced importantly before turning to face her in the white robes _and_ veil he'd laid out on the first day. All of this time she was denying herself the right to eat just to avoid wearing some grubby veil? She had to be some kind of idiot.

Taking a few tentative steps toward her, he reached out. Once again, his fingertips hovered to a stop just before touching her nose. She could feel the heat radiating off of him. Then the most peculiar thing happened. A sadness deeper than the sea and more endless than the sky seemed to overtake him. It made her want to cry, but she didn't, reminding herself of her little vow.

"In der Liebe und im Krieg ist alles erlaubt." He muttered into the soft distance between them, she couldn't understand his words, but for some reason it felt as if their dynamic had just been altered by the short phrase.

Then, as if he'd said nothing, he turned on his heel and strode toward the door. But before he could close it, he tossed something black at her.

She caught it easily. She examined the black rectangle for a second before she realized what it was.

It was her cellphone.

…

"Remain still Angel."

Hausmeister grew accustomed to calling her that like many others had growing up. It was better than "Gel" or "Leeka" which were close seconds in the nickname Derby. But it wasn't as good as simple 'Ang'.

Angelica squirmed in his grip as he tried to stick a needle in her arm; it had nothing in it, which mean he wanted to take more blood. What could he possibly need so much blood for?!

A few weeks came and went and she woke startled each morning in that bath of blood. Supposedly this was common for 'special gems' like her.

The good news was that her nightmares had stopped.

Hausmeister would take blood, skin and hair samples as it grew in ever so slowly. She was fed a strange diet, too. Nothing that had ever been part of an animal was used in her food. She was beginning to feel like a hardcore eastern religious nut. Like a hardcore Hindu or something.

Her clothes were purely synthetic; nothing was ever part of an animal. She was allowed to wear cotton too. Plant based fibers were fine so long as all of the fabrics were of pure substance.

No mixed fibers. She couldn't help laughing; this guy took the bible _way_ too literally.

One moment Hausmeister was prodding her like an amoeba in a petri dish, the next she would catch him giving her that depressive stare when he thought she wasn't looking. The whole experience was a trip.

The man who she once thought was her doctor she now understood to be a psychopath and a crazy religious freak. She had yet to tell him that she was atheist, even when he made her pray with him every morning and before each meal. She watched enough Criminal Minds to know that telling him could only end in tragedy.

…

Several weeks into her capture she discovered her purpose there.

"What in the actual _Hell_ is that?" Angelica squeaked and pointed at the cage before her. It caged what looked like a zombie, thrashing and scratching through the iron bars attempting to escape.

"Do not foul your mouth with such vulgar language." He warned with a whip like glare in her direction. She brushed off her white habit to look distracted as he answered, "That is a ghoul, Angel. Take this," he walked across the dreary laboratory and placed something in her hand. It had weight. She looked down to see a shining white blade. On one end it was shaped like a big question mark about the size of a service tray with some kind of lettering down the side in a language she couldn't read. She definitely needed to study European languages...

It was broad and hooked at the one end while the other tapered to a single spiked tip. Between the two ends was a differently hued white wood with embossed gold writing that she presumed was the handle as it fell neatly into her hand.

"Use it, allow your hand guide you."

With an eyebrow raised she stared up at Hausmeister.

"Mar the monster's flesh with the spiked end." He commanded.

She felt awkward. It was not in her nature to use a weapon. Angelica was born a natural pacifist, and that was pretty exceptional considering she was an American.

She looked from her hand to the decaying human stretching his rotting limb toward her hungrily. This poor guy probably just had some flesh eating bacteria that her highly religious caretaker had decided to condemn.

Typical catholic.

Wait, isn't that _her_ being a bigot? Hmm, perhaps her time in captivity was having an effect on her absence of a religious standpoint. She would have to rectify that little issue later.

Hausmeister stared expectantly. Stomach roiling she felt her arms begin to shake before lifting her eyes to the Hausmeister to whisper, "I can't."

His lip curled into a snarl. "Why?"

"He's..." Her eyes took in the sight of the decaying man behind those bars. "He's alive." She entreated pathetically, shivering at the sight before her, imagining herself plunging a sharp stick through his belly with a wince. Her humanity was screaming. "I don't want to kill him!"

That serene calm fell over the man's features, rebirthing that warm exterior as if he'd just realized something important. "You cannot kill something that is already dead, Angel. By piercing its flesh you will purify his soul. You will be the one to purify his sins." He explained as if that made perfect sense, gazing that the moaning zombie. "Ziss creature is no longer of the living and you are the only one who can save him from his Hell." He indicated the moaning man with a tilt of his head.

Angelica shuffled backward, terrified. "No! He's sick! Shoving a piece of wood into him will just kill him! He needs _real_ medical attention, not some psychotic religious rite!" She frowned, covering her mouth with her empty hand, kicking herself mentally. Maybe now wasn't the time to tell him that purgatory was a load of hooey. It was just that this suffering person behind the bars was obviously very sick. Zombies and Martians existed just as much as heaven and hell. "No, I'm not going to kill someone because you tell me to." she determined with an unmoving expression.

The blonde man's square face fell neutral.

This was not good.

"Your mother is quite content with her garden." Images flashed over Angelica's visual field, pictures of her mom weeding her little square garden at the side of the house. "She spends much of her day weeding and trimming." The older woman walked into the house, then back out again with a small yellow basket she used to fill with her Easter candy. "It would be a shame for your deacon father to stumble across her bloodied corpse-"

The next image was of a dark shadow standing behind her with a gun resting against her head, her mother didn't seem to notice. Angelica wanted to scream for her and to tell her to run. But she couldn't.

"Stop!" She squeaked. The images faded. He won. But Angelica wasn't so naïve. "Prove that she's going to be okay and I'll do whatever you say."

The man pulled out an iPad out of thin air and handed it to her, on the screen was her mother. Briefly she wondered why he was showing this to her with an iPad when he could have just as easily used whatever device was sending those images into her head. She was tottering around in the house preparing for something. She wore a lot of black. Then she realized what was going on, she must have thought her daughter was dead.

"Fine, okay, you win..." She muttered with a tight throat, placing the heartbreaking device back into his hand. His fingers shuffled away to avoid touching her skin. She was suddenly very thankful that her captor seemed to fear touching her. It certainly beat the alternative.

A small frown tugged her mouth. It was a strange choice. Kill someone to save someone else. The 'someone else' just happens to be her mother. But the person she was about to kill was someone else's 'someone'. Now that's a pretty confusing concept. She eyed the poor sick man. What if he had a wife or daughter waiting for him at home? She chewed her lip anxiously. She had never even been in a fight before and now she was expected to execute some random stranger. A painfully hot pit of burning distress balled her stomach as she took tentative steps toward the decaying human.

"I'm sorry." was all she could think to say before lunging the metal piece through the bars, using the metal as a guidepost to pierce his skull.

She missed.

Angelica fell forward from the force of the lunge and almost cracked her face against the cage, only catching herself by smashing her face against her fingers where they gripped the bar. Owchie.

The zombie-man gripped her upper arm with one slimy hand as his skin sloughed off, leaving grey and bleeding fingerprint stains on her white robe. She could do nothing but struggle to escape the man's hold. Gritting his teeth against the metal bars he chomped to bite down on her flesh.

For some reason she heard myself beginning to pray. And it wasn't just her imagination. She was saying something aloud that her father once preached about. Redemption and forgiveness in the eyes of God.

"…Amen."

Adding that word was instinct from years of beating prayers into her head, she supposed, when she stabbed him through the heart.

Angelica's breath left her as she shivered to the cold ground accompanied by the rotted corpse of the zombie. Only, now the skin around the pointed end of the weapon was bubbling violently only calming and simmering around the wound to reveal clean, smooth skin. The bubbling shimmered slowly over his body as a slow moving shroud being tugged off to free him from that terrible body until all that remained was the relaxed body of a middle aged man with slightly greying hair.

Angelica's caretaker stood over her shoulder. She couldn't make herself look away from the newly healed body.

"Amazing." Hausmeister cooed as if Angelica was his prized child.

She didn't feel quite 'amazing' but she was certainly surprised. Who'd a thought she would be able to cure a stranger’s illness by stabbing him with a pointy stick? A proud smirk tugged her cheek reflexively. In all her years of study, she had never seen a reaction such as this to any drug or medical treatment. It was... miraculous.

"Impressed with yourself, are we?" Hausmeister teased, unlatching the cell’s gate to examine the body as Angelica began tugging at the handle of her weapon to try and get it out of the poor soul slumped against the bars. He eyed her pathetic attempt to haul the weapon free with mild amusement. "Let's take it one victory at a time, shall we?"

...

During the weeks and months following, Angelica's caretaker had her accomplish the same task of 'cleansing' hundreds of times, sometimes multiple times during the course of a day. It was exhausting work. Not physically, rather, it felt like she hadn't eaten in weeks after she went about using the weapon. She felt entirely drained. And for whatever reason, she found herself praying for the ghoul's forgiveness from God although she distinctly remembered laughing at such ideas only a few short months ago.

But something was changing about her, intrinsically. Things that normally would have made her upset or angry were simply a part of life. Nothing seemed to spark any kind of emotional response, not even stabbing a human through the heart with a wooden blade.

At some point in her now _six month_ stay; Hausmeister requested that she help him with his varied 'pets' under the pretense that if she didn't that he would let them eat her.

He used the word 'pets' with possibly the most unstable definition she had ever heard.

He had creatures of every size and delegation; from rare species she had only ever heard of to what looked like creatures from the Black Lagoon children's books.

A huge, black and terrifyingly disproportionate anteater-looking-thing ate what looked alarmingly similar to human teeth. As she walked down the corridor she would pass the thick glass wall of another creature that looked to be an irregularly tall man in a tuxedo. This one always faced away from the glass. She wondered if he had a face at all. To this 'pet' she gave some kind of poorly chopped meat, there were huge chunks of bone and vertebrae in the buckets from time to time. She never did get to see him eat the buckets of food; the only evidence that he had a mouth at all was an empty, bloody, bucket the next morning.

What concerned her the most was how she took all of this in stride.

After 'cleansing' that first man's body of his illness she felt a trancelike attachment with her caretaker. She chalked all of this up to Stockholm's syndrome.

After a number of 'cleansings', she began noticing bits and pieces of herself were changing and moving. Shifting and disappearing like sand between her fingers. The only thing that brought her back to reality were the images of her parents or Jace or Lydia whenever she balked and decided something her caretaker requested was too hellish.

Thankfully Hausmeister seemed to understand that she just couldn't handle some things. Like, killing a normal living person. It was one thing to kill a 'zombie', a.k.a. a very sick person; it was something else entirely to shove a wooden spike through a normal, breathing, and healthy person. He had another human sitting in a cage in his laboratory. A girl with auburn hair, she was twitchy and angry but she wasn't sick in any way.

In fact, the girl had a name. Marta. She was of Hispanic descent, that much was obvious from her accent, and she was quite a hothead. Always threatening Angelica and Hausmeister that she would kill them when she got out of there.

Angelica could appreciate that sentiment.

…

"A vampire-"

Angelica cackled like a maniac, falling from her rolling chair flat on her face but continued laughing hysterically. Hausmeister stood above, clearly unamused by her laughter, silently awaiting the return of her sanity.

"Are you quite finished?" He questioned with quiet authority. Angelica's jaw snapped shut as she huddled her arms over her knees and stared up at him. "Good." He smiled brightly, striding over to the cage to indicate toward the auburn haired girl. "As I was saying," he swooped his hand out toward the cage like a game show host, " _this_ is a vampire-"

"Baha!" Angelica burst out laughing again, completely unable to contain herself.

This guy, a fairly intelligent, _God fearing_ man believed that the pretty girl looking at us like a pair of morons was _a_ _vampire_? He obviously jumped headlong off the deep-end.

And judging by his cold glare he had no idea what humor was.

Suddenly Angelica's pealing laughter was cut off by an awful gagging sound as realized she was pinned to the wall by the throat by something. An arm. Her eyes followed up the arm to its owner. The girl.

The fire in her magnificent red eyes choked the laugh right out of Angelica's throat, "So you think this is funny, hm?" she growled like a feral dog, taking Angelica's chin between her thumb and forefinger, turning her head to the side roughly against the cement wall. She gagged and sputtered for air but the girl was crushing her windpipe. She grinned like something out of a bad horror flick to reveal pointed canines and a long red tongue as she leaned up to meet Angelica's throat.

Angelica glanced to Hausmeister for help but he seemed ignorant of the dire situation as he wrote something on a yellow notepad. The demonic creature attached to the arm that was currently choking her lights out breathed a cold breath on her throat.

Then the unintentional praying started, only this time it was a bit louder than usual. And she was speaking some language she couldn't quite understand.

Angelica squeezed her eyes shut then reopened them as her own arm flew up and dropped the hooked end of her weapon over the girl's slim shoulders almost by its own accord the blade begin tearing through her throat from the side until her head fell backwards. It bounced then rolled like a macabre bowling ball, landing at Hausmeister's feet, who simply looked up at Angelica as if nothing had gone amiss.

Angelica fell to her knees and gasped desperately for air as she panicked. She then began to pray again. It felt so wrong, but it felt so right. Angelica didn't believe in a God, yet here she was pleading with Him for redemption for this lost soul. The girl's body then seemed to deflate, turning to nothing but blood that quickly evaporated like mist across a field on a cool morning. Angelica stayed like that on the floor for a long time, shuddering, with her hands clamped together around the strangely shaped weapon. The laboratory was dead silent minus the scratching of Hausmeister's pen.

"Do not mourn for such a creature, it does not deserve your forgiveness."

Tilting her head slowly, she saw Hausmeister take a knee before her. She looked into his eyes and saw that sadness again.

Angelica brought the weapon across her chest, hugging it. "Hausmeister… I feel like something's changed in me. Like someone is taking over my body and making me do these things." She explained in a low tone to match my mood. "This is all so unlike me, I'm not a killer, I'm not meant to hurt people-"

"You've hurt no one, not even that lowly vampire."

Confused, she watched his face shift around for the right emotion until it landed on 'proud'. "You freed that creature of its unholy plight. Because of you it was able to go where it belonged rather than prolong its time in Earth's pergatory." He reached out to her and she leaned in, seeking some kind of comfort in this confusing time. But, like always, he stopped just before caressing her face. "What else is bothering you Schatzi?" He asked gently as a sweet grandfather. "Nothing will ever harm you. As long as I live I will protect you from those that wish to destroy you."

Wish to… destroy her? Angelica's one eyebrow rose just a few millimeters.

"Who would want to hurt me?" She asked, suddenly afraid for the first time throughout this entire ordeal. "Why doesn't someone else do this? Why don't _you_ do it? I'm not qualified!"

"There's no one else Schotzi, only you can wield something so holy as this." He motioned to the wooden spiked weapon she was still trying to crush between her hands to no avail.

A realization hit her. Though she wasn't quite sure how she felt about it.

"So this really is made from the Jesus's cradle…" She felt over the inscription with her fingertips and looked up at the blonde with her eyes. "What does this say?"

"No one is sure, the language was lost centuries ago. There is no direct translation."

"Why me?" She nearly sobbed, but remembered her promise to herself and pulled herself together.

"Schotzi, you are the only one who can dethrone the great demon on Earth." He answered cryptically again. "You’re the only one who can end that creature's suffering."

This was all far too much to comprehend. Was she wrong all of this time? Was there a God? Was that girl _really_ a vampire?

What happened to the world she knew?

…

Angelica began trying to understand what caused that their bodies to recuperate so rapidly. Why was this… this… _weapon_ able to cure this form of, what looked like, leprosy? None of it made any sense. It didn't help that Hausmeister believed that it was a holy instrument made from the wood used in Jesus Christ's cradle.

She was used to a certain level of fanaticism, her parents namely, but this guy played by a whole different set of rules.

Angelica no longer feared the man. In fact, she thought he was kind of sweet. Though she also chalked this up to Stockholm's syndrome.

Every day she looked at her phone to check if there was some way to contact the outside world. But no. The machine's only purpose was to remind her that there was a world beyond these walls through pictures of her goofy friends and Jace and old text messages from her mom and dad. It should have hurt to let the whole world disappear, but for whatever reason, when she held that weapon she felt at home.

That was why Hausmeister eventually let her tote it with her at all times.

…

There was this place deep in the underground warehouse where all of their food was grown. Nothing they ate was cooked or altered in any way. Eating a whole eggplant for the first time was strange. She peeled it like an apple and bit into it. The flesh was dryer than she expected so she flushed it down with water. The only liquid she was allowed to ingest.

Angelica glared up at the skylight. It was infuriatingly high.

She examined the walls. They were smoothed metal and glass, nothing to grip at all. Then of course there were the industrial fans that lined the ceiling. There was no escaping this place.

…

Eight months into Angelica's captivity that she noticed some drastic physical abnormalities. Her skin seemed clearer, hair shinier, eyes brighter and (surprise!) no gross bags or pimples under them. There was a shower in her room stacked with every possible feminine amenity, probably so she wouldn't have to endure the embarrassment of asking Hausmeister for anything. She was shocked to learn that she wasn't horrible to look at when she didn't look like a bedraggled old bag lady.

Hausmeister recently replaced his normal lab coat and green scrubs for some forest green military uniform with a white bandana wrapped around his upper right arm and a flat of ribbons on one side of his chest with golden buttons.

One morning after she lost count of her days in captivity she lay in bed thinking. She wanted to get out of there, yet she found this all so interesting. If she could hone this ability of hers to cure cancer or AIDS or heart disease or river blindness it would be the best thing to happen to humanity since the discovery of penicillin. She could single handedly save thousands of lives.

Lost in thought, she failed to notice the black mass hovering above her.

"Awaken Schotzi,"

Angelica to jerked away, surprised. She sprung to a seated position and clutched the down blanket to her chest as if her life depended on it.

"More precious than a gem." He smiled, reaching a hand to touch her face before halting it midair and dropping it to his side. "Years of meticulous search and study..." He spoke under his breath until his words were barely audible.

Then his eyes seemed to liven. "How would you like to go outside today?"

Hausmeister caretaker was calm and collected through the entire experience. He spoke in his velveteen voice and explained the sights.

Angelica's first day in the real world after months of being locked away was overly stimulating. Colors were too bright; there were too many people. And far too many of them felt the need to speak to her. It was uncomfortable. It was stressful. It caused her to panic. Hausmeister swooped her up and returned her to the lab where he gave her a paper bag to breathe into.

Of the many things she expected, there was some things that had never crossed her mind.

One was that she was suddenly phobic toward the outside world.

The other was that they were somewhere in Belfast. She was in Ireland.

 


	4. Jingoism

 

_Jingoism (n.):_

_The belief of people who think that their country is always right in their violent actions against others._

* * *

The following days were weird. Angelica felt wired, as if someone had put her on overdrive. Her mind was constantly spinning ways to escape. That small taste of the outside world was driving her crazy. She was angry at herself for becoming so docile in the care of a complete stranger but she convinced herself that it was all just to keep her parents alive.

Hausmeister would take her on walks outside to readjust to the light every morning, but one day he let her out by herself, giving very strict instructions.

"There is a stone warehouse near the harbor, you are by no means allowed to go there. Do _not_ listen to your instincts, the only thing that awaits you there is death himself." He warned as he fixed the ribbon rack on his chest.

Above Hausmeister's bed was a wooden canopy. Above that canopy was an attic door that puled down on hinges. Next to his bed was a drop-down ladder to climb in order to get to the second ladder. Angelica was stumped. Why go through so much trouble when you could just build a staircase?

As soon as Hausmeister closed the door, freeing her from his imposing gaze, she took off running down the middle of the road, narrowly avoiding a black car as it raced past. She had no idea where she was going, only that she needed to get away. _Now_.

Then, as she passed some stone buildings to her right, she heard shrieks and cries. They were death cries. No one else on the street seemed to notice.

Of their own accord, her legs started running her toward those blood curdling screams.

The harbor was only a few hundred feet away from where she climbed from captivity. It was the one place Hausmeister warned her against. Hope fueled her as she ran toward the smell of low tide and rotting eggs. She could take a boat somewhere! Ignoring the driving impulse to run toward the screams within that stone building, Angelica ran to the dock and frantically accosted the first person she saw.

"Hi! I'd like to buy a ticket to, well, _anywhere,_ please!" She disjointedly begged the captain of a small boat that floated like a balloon on a string behind him as he coiled rope in his hands.

The older man eyed her suspiciously, grabbing his bushy grey beard to think. A nun with a sword was _never_ a good sign in this part of the world.

"Where yah try'na git to sister?" he asked, kneeling to untie the knot holding his boat to the dock.

The nun glanced around like someone was after her before whispering only loud enough for him to hear: "America."

The captain nearly spit out his chewed cigarette out of disgust and stared up at her quietly for a minute to decide if she was genuine.

"That'll cost ya quite a bit."

"Please, I don't have much time." The frightened girl begged.

Judging by the apprehensive stress in her demeanor and the strange white scythe the girl had strapped to her back he figured she must have done something to piss off the IRA. He was not willing to get involved with enemies of the Irish Republican Army.

"Fer seven hundred I can get ya ta Greenland with the other crew, buh tha's et."

Angelica's heart sank as her coinage situation became distressingly apparent. She had nothing.

"Er, sorry, I just realized I have no money..."

"Sorry Sister. Tha's alotta gas." The white bearded man shrugged, happy to be rid of the troublesome girl.

Crap! How was she going to get out of here now?!

Screams pierced the calm harbor. The captain looked over Angelica's shoulder to the stone building behind her and started working frantically to get the small ship ready for a trip. Every few seconds he would look back up to check the building. He was waiting for something.

"You oughta get out a here." The captain warned, "Thes is no place fer a woman."

Shouts, the broken cries of fully-grown men seemed to grow louder with each passing minute. But Angelica didn't feel afraid as she might have once before. Her emotions began to fade again, but then she felt a hand fall heavily onto her shoulder that jerked her back to reality with a start.

"Cap'n we takin' charters on this'un?" A happy young man cheered from behind her. "We could use a pretty face 'round here." He winked.

The scraggily older man shook his head slowly, nervously before motioning the boy onto the boat. "Naht this time, boy. Time ta go, meetin's ov'r."

"Meeting?" Angelica asked, "What's going on?" Both pairs of eyes dropped to the girl. "Sorry, I'm very lost here."

"Ah, a convent girl. What kind'a Christian are ya?" The younger man asked, removing his hand from her shoulder to move in front of her.

Angelica's face blanched. "Uh, I'm not sure…"

" _Protestant_?" The younger man probed, barren of the gentle cheer his voice held only moments prior. "Or _Catholic_?"

Her mouth opened to answer but the scene around her exploded into chaos. It was as if a bomb struck. The boat was nothing but flotsam drifting in the hectic pink tipped waves of dark red in murky green water.

The older man with whom she had been conversing was now a blood stain on the dock. His body sunk into the water amidst the floating pieces of his ship.

Horrified, Angelica stumbled backward, tripping over something onto her backside and into a pool of blood soaked mud and grass.

Blinded with terror she leaped to her feet.

A deep voice met her ears with the evocative feel of cashmere. "And what, exactly, are _you_ supposed to be?"

Tossing her head about she tried to figure out what just happened. Then she looked down to the bloody dirt from where she tripped.

There was a man in a red duster kneeling on the ground with his chin dripping with blood, black hair falling to one side of his face to cover a pair of round orange tinted glasses.

_He must have dyslexia_ , she thought to herself, trying to think of some redeeming quality of the person who was currently _eating_ that nice Irish guy.

Before Angelica could find the sense to respond, he dropped his face back to the dead man on the ground, biting down hard on his throat, causing blood to spray everywhere like he'd bitten into a water balloon.

Normally, when faced with a situation such as this a person might run away, or scream. But not Angelica.

"Not much of a talker are we?" The killer taunted as he lifted his head once more. "Or are you so scared that you can't move?" His eyed suddenly caught the weapon on her back and a terrifying smile creased large dimples into his cheeks. "So _that's_ where it went." He came to his haunches and lifted a white gloved hand, palm up. "Be a good little girl and give me the Scythe."

On instinct alone, her hand reached for the blade's handle to protect it.

As if bored by her compliance he reached up with one massively long arm and grabbed Angelica by the front of her habit, standing to his full height as he lifted her feet off of the ground.

Did the IRA think they could steal from Helsing without repercussions? Or that sending the Scythe away with a holy nun would deter him? At first he found the little nun funny. The shock and terror reflected in her eyes was amusing as her comrades became nothing more than chunks of people. Though, now, as he held her at eye level Alucard realized he did not like what he saw.

They were the same as...

_No_ ; it wasn't possible. Completely ridiculous. Seres was the right one, he was sure of it. Narrowing his eyes with a sinister grin he looked into those defiant eyes and laughed. "Go on, I believe you were planning to attack me. Make it happen little girl."

The motion was quick, fast enough to catch Alucard by surprise.

He dropped her to the ground. Angelica landed on her feet and watched the white metal rip through his ribcage with ease, exposing each individual rib like teeth. The cool blade slid through him, leaving a wide wound across his chest. Blood flowed out at an alarming rate to the wooden dock, far more quickly than any supposed vampire in the past.

Attempting to withdraw the weapon, Angelica lurched her body weight backward to haul it out until she fell backward into her butt with the hooked scythe in hand, blood dripping over the handle, seeping into her skin like red dye. Looking up, she watched utter shock take over the arrogant smile the man before her adorned since he showed up. Minute pain seemed to register there and all Angelica could think to do was whimper, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It doesn't usually do that it usually... It usually..."

To Angelica's horror, and minor relief, the wound began to close. He touched the exposed bone and made a face like he was going to sneeze then another great big grin seemed to take over his whole face before cracking up.

"And you have the nerve to call yourself a vampire hunter? How pathetic."

Angelica wasn't entirely sure how to take his mocking tone. She never called herself a vampire hunter; in fact, she still had a hard time believing that such a thing could really exist.

"I'm not a… I'm sorry." She eyed the pool of blood gathering around his feet before flicking them back up to his amber glasses. "It usually fixes-"

Suddenly she was forced to her knees. She heard that deep, silken voice murmur from high above her head as a metallic click rang in the space between them. "Oh? You were trying to fix me? Is there something about me that displeases you?"

The cold breath made her shutter as excuses came tumbling from her mouth. "Hausmeister told me that I needed to purify vampires, that I was helping you find peace-"

_Bang_.

A painful, yes, _painful_ sound reverberated through her eardrums and into her skull, rattling her brain until it scrambled to figure out what had just happened.

The wild looking man stood above with a massive gun aimed for her forehead. Angelica's heart leaped to her throat, he slid the burning hot metal from her forehead to her mouth and she realized what the painful sound was.

That asshole _shot_ her!

She struggled to grasp the realization because she hadn't felt it happen. But when she moved her hands, keeping her eyes on the vampire, she felt that half of her torso was simply gone. Vanished. Poof. And without those muscles to keep her sitting straight, she crumpled to the side. Her one remaining hand felt her own boiling hot organs moving and undulating as shock tried to set in.

The gun went off again. She could not move. She couldn't make herself fight back. She knew that he had every right to kill her. It was only natural to fight back when someone hurt you first. This man was naturally reacting to an attack. It wasn't his fault.

Clearly this guy didn't want to be 'cleansed'. He reveled in his immortality. It suited him pretty well. He made a pretty freaky sci-if flick of the week.

"Aren't you going to beg for your life?" He mocked from above. "Beg. Go on. _Do it!_ "

Angelica didn't move a muscle. She just looked at the gun aimed at her face, accepting her fate.

Suddenly irritated with her indifference he gripped the front of her bloody white robe and lifted her off of the ground to make her look at him in the eyes. Her head lolled to the side where her left shoulder was missing, only a bloody stump. Cold breath puffed against her exposed throat and she felt something wet lap at the skin. She then realized absently that he must have tasted her blood.

"Or are you waiting for me to bite you?" he provoked with his silken tone, "Is that what you want, kraut? Immortality? To become a monster like the ones you slay?"

The girl didn't answer. She didn't react. She only stared at him with big forgiving eyes. Alucard felt the strong desire to blow her pretty little face to smithereens.

Angelica felt the squared nozzle of the gun press a hot brand deep into her cheek.

That's when she began praying in that strange language.

The next thing she heard was a high pitched ringing sound.

The sensation of being thrown to the ground dismissively was harsh and gritty.

And that was all she could remember.

…

Alucard found himself giving into curiosity by flipping through her cellphone while she underwent intensive surgery to fix the damage to the nun's shoulder and gut. There were hundreds of phone numbers on the little device, he wondered how many of these people she actually spoke to. Then he figured out how to access her pictures. There were thousands on the little black device.

One stood out among the strange images of red cups being used as hats with a red haired girl and different wine labels, though he could see she preferred a Columbian Crest 2009 cabernet sauvignon.

It was a photo of a young man donning a mask with the likeness of Guy Fawkes, lifting his shirt to reveal a well formed abdomen. Through the mask's eyes he could see blue, but something about them seemed wrong. Those blue eyes were oddly familiar.

Disturbed, he clicked the phone's light off and placed it back in the bin with her other personal affects where he found it.

…

The full body covered hers. Struggling blindly she felt her body heat surge, sweat doused the pure white robes that gathered around her hips. Without sight she could only smell the man above. He smelled like blood and dirt.

Images of a beautiful man teasing her with a flirtatious smirk and flaming red eyes flashed over her mind like a burning room. She couldn't let this happen, she couldn't let him find her body like this. _Not again_.

Terrified screams pealed from her raw throat as the burning hot entity above began grumbling about her 'using her power to keep the enemy safe'. Calling her a traitor and a monster.

Tears streamed down her cold cheeks in torrents. Her eyes were glued shut as they ran dry. Her throat was raw and sore from screaming.

Struggling like a cornered animal she used her arms as a cage around herself, then thrashed one arm out to push away his face. She tried to dig her fingers into his eyes. Small squeaks of extreme effort crept between her lips sounding more like a baby elephant than a scared girl. His massive hands encircled her thin wrists and he pinned them above her head as she struggled to escape.

She would get away this time. She would fight back.

But she couldn't. The man above was too strong. Eventually she simply let it happen, there was no use in fighting anymore. It was all too exhausting.

After what felt like hours of laying in her own blood in silence, she felt a gentle finger run across the bridge of her nose, under her eyes and along the shells of her ears.

"Please... don't go." The gentle words echoed in her head. What kind of accent was that? Russian? No. Polish? Certainly not. It sounded Western European but she couldn't put her finger on its homeland.

"Don't leave me here alone..." The grip on her limp body tensed hard.

His voice changed slowly with each passing syllable, transforming into a velveteen baritone as the thick accent seemed to fade away allowing her to better understand his words.

"… not again." She heard him say.

Her heart palpitated as the last word sunk painfully into her heart.

A tough skinned finger swiped at her face, removing a tear as it made a cold contrail toward her temple, some even lodged themselves in her ear. The tear in her ear must have warped his voice because he began to sound just like... that guy who...

**_Holy_ ** _**shit!** _

She screamed, then her voice cut into silence as she bounced painfully off of the bed and skated across tile before slamming into a wall. Angelica slumped over and squeezed her eyes tightly to her palms.

Mind scattered like marbles her eyes opened wide, allowing the Sandman's hard work go to waste. She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles sleepily, noting how sore her left arm felt, then glanced the room.

_Oh, thank god it was just a nightmare._ Angelica thought to herself, holding her chest as her heart began to slow.

At first she didn't notice him lurking in the shadowed corner of the white room. But his glowing red eyes gave away the hiding spot. He was giving a harsh glare accented with an amused smirk. She frowned a little. He didn't kill her after all.

That dream though...

It was so _real_.

"It was a nightmare." Angelica comforted herself aloud this time. The vampire seemed to think she was speaking to him because he then appeared in front of her with a cocky half-smile half-sneer as his eyes disrobed her body. A chill ran down her arms.

Wait.

Where the hell were her clothes!?

She glared up at him accusingly, not bothering to cover her skin. He already saw her naked so there was no reason to hide now. Now there was only a tiny inkling of a fear that she wanted to voice, you know, just in case.

"Give not into temptation?" she requested sarcastically, her heart drumming with fear in her chest, warning her with every fiber of her existence to run. She raised an eyebrow, hoping her nightmare was just that; a frightful dream that never actually happened.

"Me?" The vampire who nearly killed her feigned bewildered indignation. " _Never_."

She started to stand against the wall and ignored him as his eyes traveled all over. His grin drooped momentarily before returning as Angelica's hands clenched the area of her stomach that should have been nothing but a gaping hole. Then her other hand flew to her shoulder to feel for further damage. Her body was entirely intact. She panicked. Had that all been part of her nightmare?

Then something more terrifying occurred to her. Did he bite her...? Was she dead? Was she now a vampire, too?

Before she could reconsider the suicidal action, she clutched the front of his bright red duster, shaking him violently until the ornately tied cravat came apart. Tears jumped to the rims of her eyes. "You're okay!"

One hand patted his chest where the blade had slid through. "Right?" She let go of his coat and looked him up and down for injuries. "I didn't mean to- What happened? Why am I..." Stuttering for the right words, she cried at him. Guilt ate at her stomach like maggots on a month old steak.

He did not appear to be amused. "Surgeons tried to sew you up but your body would not cooperate. It seems you heal remarkably fast for a human. Genetic splicing with some crustacean species I presume?"

A sharp pain tugged at her side. But she refused to show weakness around the guy who fucking shot her.

Wait.

He _shot_ her!

She jumped away like a gazelle from a lion and hid in the safest spot in the room: under the covers.

"Such a devastating defense, there's no way I could possibly..." His white gloved hand gripped the blanket from above. Angelica curled over herself tightly to hide from the guy who blew her damned body apart.

A female voice cleared her throat in the doorway.

"Alucard what the _Hell_ are you doing." The woman asked tersely. He dropped the blanket like it shocked him. It floated gently over Angelica's face and she continued burrowing into the bed.

"Waking the girl, as you ordered." He gave a wolfish grin.

Angelica poked her eyes out from behind the blanket to watch the two bicker like an old married couple. The wife, in this situation, obviously wore the pants.

"I did not tell you to make the girl howl like a banshee and wake Seres. What did you do to her? And don't you dare say 'nothing'" The older woman narrowed her sharp blue eyes threateningly with a tight edge to her English accented voice. Angelica expected the vampire to scoff and give some bogus explanation.

But he didn't.

Instead he relaxed his posture reverently and told the whole story, starting from before she woke: " I heard screaming behind the door. You had given no orders to kill or maim her in any way. I found that she was having a night terror." The blonde's face tensed as she nodded for him to continue. "I threw her." His grin widened, the blonde's eyes stormed. " _That_ seemed to work."

Angelica disagreed with his reasoning and continued looking about the room for means of escape.

"That's when you walked through the door without knocking." He explained.

"I have an open invitation to every room of my own damn house." The older woman smirked with daringly narrow eyes.

"Yes, my master."

It was shocking, surprising, confusing even. He didn't say those words with distain, but rather respect and admiration that Angelica almost envied. This woman deserved a person so devoted in her advanced age.

"Angelica Rampart." Angelica's eyes snapped to the willowy woman in the doorway. She had an armored guard on either side. "You have cost us far more than you're worth. Who are your masters?" She demanded, gaze unwavering.

"Masters?" Angelica wondered quietly aloud, but the woman didn't seem to hear.

"What did you say?" The blonde shifted so her right ear was closer. "Speak up!"

Angelica sat up and shouted, "I don't have a master!"

"Then explain your attack on Alucard. If you have no master, as you claim, then why dare such a suicide mission?"

Angelica went silent.

"Whose 'Alucard'?"

The silence was quickly filled with cackling laughter that erupted like popcorn in the microwave. Glancing between the guards, the vampire and his master, confusion numbed Angelica's brain as the tall man in red cracked up to the point where he was holding himself up against an armoire.

"The vampire you provoked," the blonde woman spoke through the vampire's laughter, "his name is Alucard." She shook her head slowly and deliberately, eyes barely hiding a smirk. "Why did go after him? Who do you work for?"

It didn't feel right talking about him when he was standing right there like a laughing, toothy, piece of meat. Of their own accord she lifted her eyes to the right to watch his aloof expression. 'Aloof' in his expression repertoire meant a mild smirk of amusement at the situation around him. The amusement seemed to increase drastically as his eyes slid to meet Angelica's somewhere in between them.

Her heart bubbled nervously. Frightfully she said, "I-I swear that I have no masters."

The blonde woman crossed her arms, her round glasses reflecting the light so harshly that Angelica could no longer see her eyes. "The Iscariot?"

"Huh?" Angelica stared at her. Did she just speak in pig-Latin?

The woman stilled and her brows pulled together. "What religious affiliation are you?"

Burning hot vomit rose in the back of Angelica's throat. This had been a confusing year for her, spiritually. For one, she had some form of spirituality that she still couldn't quite grasp. But for now, considering this was obviously some kind of interrogation, she decided to simply tell her the truth. "When I got kidnapped I was atheist, but now I'm not so sure."

Alucard's red eyes trained hard on Angelica's face, but she refused to look away from the blonde in the doorway with a newly emerged smirk on her face.

"An atheist." She smiled only wide enough to show ultrawhite teeth. She seemed to become angry for a moment before regaining composure as only royalty could. She then continued regally, "what a plight you have befallen, Alucard." Her sardonic smile shifted to a small frown of stiff disapproval. "A _godless_ nun tried to kill you."

Angelica still couldn't look at him, even when she felt the cold intensity of his gaze, it just didn't feel right. His eyes were something familiar. Something awful.

"I see." She heard him mutter from the right side of the room.

The blonde woman began again, "Angelica, your misdirected anger at god-"

Angelica rolled her eyes and spoke fast, she had heard this same lecture from a thousand different mouths in her life. "I don't hate God. My parents are Baptists. They are great: happy, smiling. I don't _hate_ God, I simply don't believe that there _is_ one."

The words had a dangerous, silencing effect on the room.

"So, you're telling me that you used the Scythe… as an atheist." She stated dubiously, taking long, important steps toward the girl before stopping right next to her spot on the bed. She stood right in front of Alucard, who Angelica was then forced to look at as he loomed just over his master's shoulder imposingly. He was still staring, but Angelica only awarded him a diminutive glance for his effort.

"It is impossible," he spoke into the thin blonde's ear, thinking Angelica couldn't hear, or didn't care if she did. "No one else can access…" His voice lowered until Angelica couldn't distinguish the words. The woman's eyes widened minutely and she turned her eyes back the spot where Angelica lay defenseless.

The blonde woman then turned back toward the door.

"Alucard," the woman called over her shoulder, "Do not come back into this room again unless Seres, or I, accompany you." Then, she acknowledged the short haired girl on the bed, pausing her short jaunt, turning a little to face her. "Angelica, you are to meet me in my office in an hour. New clothes will be delivered to your door shortly and Seres will guide you. I am Integra Fairbrooks Wingate Helsing, allow me to be the first to explain _everything_."

* * *

_A/N: Thanks for reading, leave a review to let me know what you think. Even if you hate it._


	5. Recherché

_Recherché (adj.):_

_Rare, exotic, or obscure. Not understood by most._

* * *

"We've been blessed with your company until Sir Integra decides what to do with you."

"Do with me?" Angelica parroted dumbly. Alucard sat across from her upon the most ornate gold and red chair she'd ever seen in an equally ridiculously fabulous red duster while she was in her ratty old habit on the side of the bed.

The scoundrel smiled as his eyes ripped her to shreds. Angelica felt extremely uncomfortable under his gaze, but stood her ground, not allowing even the slightest hint of discomfort shine through her expression. Alucard was speaking to her in a way that made her think he might rip out her throat at any moment, then roll around in the blood just for kicks. "She isn't known for her tolerance with threats against her family's estate."

Her one eyebrow rose just barely. Between the two vampires in her immediate vicinity, the person she was least concerned about was Integra. Alucard's expression fell slightly before readjusting as if nothing happened. He was a highly emotional man. She glared at him. He was hiding something. "I didn't hurt anyone." She reminded him.

He loomed over her like a dark cloud. "Integra finds it highly offensive for cultists such as yourself to try and kill me off like some common pest."

"It's not like I wanted any of this!" She grabbed empty handed for the right words, throwing her loose fists in the air, lurching over the side of the bed from the motion, landing on two feet, barely. "He has my parents, my fiancé! I had no choice."

An aggressive looking smile spread over his face like a snarling dog, "How moving. It only took the lives of three humans to make you kill in cold blood." She didn't look away at those steak knife teeth. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing how he'd hit the mark as he continued his taunt. "You're the most vile kind of human, the kind born without a spine to stand with."

Angelica tightened her expression so it wouldn't falter and folded her arms across her chest, rocking her weight to one hip. "What would you do if someone said that they would kill Integra if you didn't kill someone else for them, someone you didn't know?"

He shrugged one shoulder and sunk deeply into the chair. He tilted his chin up before baring his teeth. She supposed they would have frightened anyone else. "That's an impractical example. No one would dare lay a finger on my master."

"But imagine it did happen." She insisted, looking directly into his red eyes.

Then, without missing a beat he answered, "I'd kill the one holding the gun to her head."

"Isn't that a pretty major gamble?" She let her hand float out in front of her, palm up, as if she was physically handing her Devil's Advocate to him. "What if they pulled the trigger before _your_ bullets could hit their mark?"

His teeth retracted, face twisted in deep consideration. He didn't like the idea of Integra being hurt. "Enough of this. Sir Integra Helsing awaits your company."

Alucard left the room, followed by a dazed and quiet Seres. Angelica lumbered after them slowly, imagining that death might be a blessing compared to this strangely lavish Hell.

…

"No, you're wrong!" Angelica argued, frantically begging for Integra's words to be a lie. There was a brief, frantic pause. "I don't believe you." Without saying another word Integra slid a paper across the mahogany desk with one finger, in an almost smug manner. Her stomach flipped painfully, warning her not to even dare look at that dumb paper. Against her better judgment Angelica lifted it gingerly as if the edges were knives, but she didn't want to believe a word of it. "This... This is dated to the year 2035..."

"They were killed a week after your capture. You can see that this was not a coincidence Angelica." There was not a trace of compassion in her cold English accent. "Now tell me, what is your connection with the scythe?" Arctic blue eyes, frigid and deadly, narrowed. " _Who_ are your masters?"

"M-masters?" Angelica stuttered, confusion rang in her ears. This was all so confusing and painful and beyond her understanding of reality. Though, her scope of reality was being stretched further and further each and every day until she had now begun to think she was the crazy one for believing so thoroughly in test tubes and microscopes.

Nope, the world was crazy. Angelica was just fine. Or so she reminded herself every 10 seconds.

Integra's eyes had this power to them. They were intense. Her heavy stare felt like a gun pressed to Angelica's head, waiting for the shuddering girl's answers. "W-well, I only met one person and he never told me his name—"

The cold stare grew impatient, waiting for her to reach a point. Angelica scrambled for a better answer, hoping not to die at this particular moment. She scrunched her eyes closed and her throat tightened against her will. With it came a desperate plea, "it's the truth! Stick me on a lie detector. Torture me! He made me call him 'Hausmeister' and he always called me 'schotzi'. It's a Russian word I think, and he made me use that… that _thing_ to do what he called 'cleansing' the souls of the undead and a number of vampires—"

"So what you're saying is that you lived with a man for over a year and you never _once_ heard his name spoken?"

Angelica blinked across the table once. "Who else would have said his name?" Angelica asked rhetorically. "The only thing I know for sure is that it was deep under ground in Belfast."

"I see." She said, eyes distant, thinking quietly before they lifted above Angelica's head, immediately growing more lucid. "Alucard."

"Yes my master?" His low tenor suddenly appeared behind her, causing Angelica to flinch. The memory of his velvet purr growling out cruel demands before shooting her in the fucking stomach was something she would never forget. It was the indifferent, if not jubilant red eyes that watched her drop to the dirt like a used kitchen rag. They haunted every living cell in her body.

Integra motioned her hand, rolling it away, shooing the monstrously tall vampire away, lighting a thin cigarillo. "Escort Angelica to the hospital wing. A guest should not be held in a cell."

Angelica's brain whirled like the Jeopardy! Wheel. It somehow landed on 'be flailingly confused' instead of 'congrats, you're not going to die horribly!'.

That wildly extravagant room was what these people called a _holding cell_? This place was its own special brand of luxurious.

And crazy. Luxuriously crazy.

"It seems we just gained an ally of great consequence." Integra continued while the vampire's nearly transfixed smiled faltered into an expression of displeasure. "Don't give me that look. If you have something to say, then say it, nothing's held you before..." She muttered the last part only loud enough for Angelica to hear. She smirked at the accurate assessment.

"This is an awful idea" Alucard said, leaning over Angelica's dipped head, gripping both arm rests, completely enveloping them with iron fingers. It gave Angelica the opportunity to check out the pentagrams on those white gloves. She wondered how they always managed to stay white, considering his line of work.

"Yes." Integra took a deep pull from her cigarillo nonchalantly. Alucard didn't appear pleased with her blasé attitude.

"She's completely untrustworthy"

"Indeed." She blew a thin plume of smoke from her lips that curved into a mocking smile.

Alucard pushed away from Angelica's chair, arms shoved deep in his pockets, sulking. "You want a conspirator to stay in the manor where she can access you at any time."

"I believe that's what I said." Integra waved the pair away, picking up a piece of white paper from a tall pile on the desk, now ignoring him completely.

…

_Grbleee-grip-ip._

Oh the hungries.

Angelica paced the room with shaking, weak legs, wondering when they were going to let her out. She was basically sitting there waiting for them to kill her.

A weathered sigh.

This was way more than she expected from her early twenties.

_**Blerpigreet-eeet-rrg** _

The pain in her stomach was growing unbearable. And embarrassingly loud. She was surprised no one thought she was hoarding a wild bear in her room.

It had been almost three days since she last ate anything. She was becoming slow and weak. Hausmeister would sometimes starve her for a week if she didn't bend to his will. But, if she could survive then, she could survive now. Not even that vampire could make her do something she didn't want. Whatever it was that they were trying to accomplish, it wasn't going to happen.

"Are you ill, Angelica?"

An older woman's voice cut through the room sharp as a blade. Angelica spun on her heel to face Integra. She had a small, amused smile on her lips.

"I'm fine." How did she get in there? She hadn't heard the door open. Perhaps her reflexes were even cloudier than she thought. Her cells were shrinking and dying from the lack of nutrients. This was the opposite of good.

"You haven't eaten since you arrived. You're beginning to make me feel like a bad host." Integra offered with her smile widening. It seemed sincere enough.

Angelica's stomach growled violently if only to publicly humiliate her. Angelica's head was fuzzy. She was slowly starving to death and it really wasn't as bad as she expected.

"I'm not doing it." Angelica stated forcefully. The woman quirked an eyebrow. Angelica backed herself against the wall. "I won't do it, you can't make me do it again." Bewilderment fell over Integra's wrinkled face. "No matter how long you starve me, torture me, hurt me, I won't do it! I won't kill anyone for you or for anyone!"

Integra began to chuckle softly before taking a few quiet steps in Angelica's direction. She shrank away as the tall woman placed a hand gently on top of her head to ruffle the girl's shaggy hair tenderly.

"You would rather starve to death than kill again?" Her hand slid to the side of her head. Angelica forced herself to look up at the woman. She felt like a child under her hand. Like Integra was her tough-love dishing mother. "That's somewhat ironic seeing as you attempted to kill Alucard." Integra said with a questioning tone to her voice.

All of the excuses Angelica filed away in her head suddenly flew out of her ear as this woman treated her with some form of dignity for the first time in she could barely remember when. "He's already dead, I was trying to cleanse his soul so he could pass on."

"I see." Ingegra slid her hand down to the side of the girl's face to look deep into her eyes. "Know this, Angelica Rampart. Alucard will only let himself die by the hands of a worthy opponent." The corner of her lip twitched, as if fighting a smile. "Evidently you are not that person." Angelica's mouth opened to protest but Integra continued undaunted, placing her other finger over Angelica's lips. "Why is it that you have not taken any opportunity to leave? The door is unlocked and you are without any supervision. You are a free woman."

Seriously? The door? Angelica's face dropped like a bowling ball. Of all the stupid things she had done throughout this whole ordeal, this was definitely the stupidest.

It felt weird. From the moment Alucard left her there, she hadn't even considered leaving. All she wondered was when she would be killed or tortured or forced to kill someone. Not once did she consider escape. It was so unlike her time underground with Hausmeister. Each and every day spent in the horrible place she plotted her escape. She supposed it made sense. Back then she had a reason to go back, she had her parents and friends. But surely they were all dead too. Remaining here in this beautiful mansion did not seem like the worst thing in the world. Not compared to the loss that remained in her little house in the middle-of-nowhere America. And it was certainly better than the hellhole she crawled out of in Ireland.

"I don't want to go back there." Angelica looked up to the small round window that was just a little too high that sat off center from her bed. It felt like the skylight in the arboretum. Her heart fluttered painfully at the memory of her many failed escapes. How many times those failures broke her. "I missed the sun."

Soft unease fell about Integra's wrinkled features. "You were not allowed outside?"

"Only twice. The first time I got sick from the commotion, and the second was when..." Angelica let herself trail, realizing that Integra was very sensitive about the fact that she had wanted to kill Alucard.

"Why did you not run away if you were given freedom?"

Angelica's face lit up red. "I wasn't 'given' freedom so much as I took off running the first chance I got." She looked away from the amused squint of Integra's eyes, instead mindlessly traced the gold filigree pattern of the wallpaper. "I tried, I really, really tried. But no one would help me. My phone was disconnected, so I couldn't call mom and dad. Not that that would have done any good anyway. I had no money, or clothes, or food, or anything. Just the scythe and those stupid nun clothes."

The heiress's manner softened until she appeared nearly vulnerable in the way a tiger might be as you pull the spear from her pelt. "You had no idea that your parents were killed." Integra spoke so gently on the matter that it seemed to release some of the pressure in Angelica's heart, fading the pain away if only for a moment.

Suddenly the tall woman turned on her heel and was strutting out of the bedroom door, barking loudly over her shoulder. "What an interesting turn of events, Angelica. You are free to roam the manor. Now go eat, that's an order."

Angelica couldn't think about the fact that she'd just given her an 'order' before she simply answered, "Yes, Sir Integra."

She wanted to kick herself for being such a type B personality as she followed Integra out of the door, nervously looking around for any other people who might lock her in jail.

Angelica didn't see another person either on the way to or from the dining room. Later that night, next to her bed, she sank to the ground and prayed nameless, godless prayers. They were more like hopes and desperate desires than prayers, but it felt good. With a full belly and a bed to sleep in, Angelica felt her heart bubble over with happiness at Integra's kindness. It had been so subtly placed, but it was there. Somehow, some way, Angelica was beginning to feel human again.

…

"So... I take it you _really_ don't like me." Angelica tailed Alucard to meet with Integra about something or other. He had been less than specific when he said 'get your ass out of bed you useless sack of organs'. It had been over a week since she last had the pleasure of the house vampire's company. She spent all of that time thinking of ways to make it up to him for trying to hurt him. She labored over different approaches to that awkward conversation. There had to be a way to make him forgive her. Though, judging by the way he bowed away from her like she had the plague he possessed a lot more contempt than she was prepared for. He even appeared somewhat tired as he strutted with purpose toward Hellsing Manor's main hall.

"You are not even worth the energy it takes to stay awake in the middle of the day." He said deliberately lazily, not even moving his orientation to address her.

Without warning her brain blurted, "I'm sorry!"

It wasn't fair. She didn't even have the chance to stop herself.

His already long steps seemed to lengthen as Angelica waddled to catch up. "For what?" he asked, almost sounding consolatory, as if she was a kid who stumbled over her own shoelaces and fell on her face.

The words rushed out before her mind could filter or slow them down. "For hurting you, or for trying to, at least." She ran to catch up and walked backwards in front of him to look at his eyes although they stared straight ahead. "My head was screwed around so many different ways I didn't even know which way was up. So, well, I'm sorry for causing you all so much trouble."

Alucard stopped in his tracks. " _Trouble_?" Angelica nearly stumbled over her own two feet before crashing to a halt. He loomed over Angelica dangerously to look at her for the first time this morning. " _That's_ what you call this mess?"

She wasn't afraid. It felt stupid to just stand there in front of a vampire without pissing herself with fear. Instead, she felt almost bored with his demonstrative fury, exasperated as if he was an overly willful child. "All I can do is apologize. If you wanted to kill me you should have done it when you had the chance." His pupils jumped, then narrowed before silently continuing on their path.

Angelica was left standing there completely baffled by his lack of an answer. Usually their time together entailed a detailed description of how he would dismember her if given the opportunity. His silence was oddly concerning. "Is something wrong?"

He didn't look at her, but waited for her to catch up. "It's nothing."

Angelica couldn't help the thrill that spiked her heart. She had the very distinct feeling that it was not just 'nothing'.

…

Soft, rapid breaths were the only sound in the room. Though Integra seemed to trust the IRA's little puppet, Alucard did not.

The girl had been sleeping for nearly fourteen hours after their short meeting with Integra. The doctor patched her up efficiently enough after their little misunderstanding in Ireland but for whatever reason she would sleep for an unhealthy number of hours. Her feeble breaths were quick and labored.

" _Please…_ _ **stop**_." The girl groaned with the rasp of sleep before tossing to the side, throwing the blanket off of her shoulder to reveal satin skin that begged for him to take a bite. " _Don't hurt me, please_."

The girl never seemed to truly rest. Constantly battling an endless nightmare

" _No!"_

The dark haired vampire had enough of her childish crying and stood over her. That was normally enough to wake someone as weak as her.

Seres flinched toward the girl as if ready to protect her for Integra, but decided against it, choosing to eye her master uneasily instead. Ever since he came back with the little nun-girl he had been acting weird. The plucky blonde was a little worried that he might kill her.

Angelica screeched, flailing like a fish in the shark's jaws, with her eyes squeezed shut, still sleeping. To Seres's surprise, Alucard slapped a hand over her loud mouth rather than simply flipping her bed, as per protocol.

A pair of dark lashed eyes flew open wide, then even wider as her pupils became pinholes when she realized what loomed above. The gloved hand muffled another scream as she tried to pry it away with her fingers.

Alucard didn't remove his hand until he was sure she was going to remain silent.

"How do I turn off its noise box?" It was less of a question and more like a demand, her muffled screaming was grating against his last nerve.

Seres leaped into action, poking her pretty head over the girl from the opposite side of the bed, closing the gap of bright light above.

"Hello Angelica! Don't worry, we're to keep you out of any trouble, though it seems you like sleeping more than anything else." Seres pressed a finger into her chin, looking to ponder something. "Master, you don't think Sir Integra would be angry if we took her out for a bit, do you? The doctor said she could get a bout of cabin fever if we don't take her for walks."

"Go to the library and ask Linda for something called 'The Green Book'. You apparently need a lesson in the cruelty of the IRA." Alucard snapped.

"Of course, sorry Sir." Seres apologized with a dazed smile as she drifted off into her own little inner world, leaving him the only responsible adult in the room.

Angelica pulled her lips into her mouth and stared up at the Alucard, completely unmoving, unblinking. Just staring blankly waiting for them to do something.

Alucard then realized she must have thought she was having a nightmare. "You are awake."

Closing her eyes gently, Angelica let out the breath she must have been holding. She blinked slowly with a tiny smile. "Oh, it was just another nightmare."

Seconds later the girl shrieked and scrambled to the opposite edge of the bed in a gangly pile of limbs before sliding then tumbling off the edge, taking all of the white linens down to tangle her further.

Angelica fought the aggressive fabric off and continued tripping backward over her own feet, then the rug, then her own feet again, until finally she backed herself against the wall, causing a painting to tilt above her head, threatening to crack her skull at any moment.

Amused, Alucard appeared in front of the girl causing her to flinch backward away, trying to disappear into the white wall behind her.

The girl had yet to notice that she was entirely nude, so, being the gentleman the he was, scanned her body and remembered as much of her skin as he could possibly store before she stood and shoved his chest. "Get away!" She then bolted past, diving into the pile of blanket on the floor by Seres's feet and trying to pull herself under the bed, but it was too low so she pulled the blanket over herself and curled into a sad little ball.

This little dance was becoming a daily struggle. It didn't matter who played babysitter.

The laugh in his belly began to brew, starting as a wide grin before softly bouncing from his mouth as the girl clamored for answers.

"W-Where am I? What do you want from me?"

"Hellsing Manor you dolt-" He cocked a black eyebrow. Alucard wondered how her frail human tendons managed such a pose as she tried to squeeze between the headboard and wall. Half of her body was twisted in white linin, like a mermaid, so her legs appeared to be backwards while her arms were forced forward like a diver as she pressed her shoulders through the impossibly small gap. This girl needed a mental evaluation. "…What do you think you're doing?"

She stopped squirming through the gap to stare at him blankly as if he'd just asked an incredibly stupid question.

"Uh, running away?" was all she could think to say before she thought of a better excuse with a gasp, "s-so you can't take my blood and cut off my hair! It just started growing back in I really don't want to—" She babbled on about different tortures all the while, trying to squish her shoulders to half of their size, which wasn't really working.

Another broad smirk pulled at the corners of his mouth, ultimately baring his teeth at the girl, who didn't seem to pay him any mind as she tried to press away from his presence. "Is that the kind of hazing cults use now a days?"

She stopped moving immediately, only poking her eyes out from behind the bed. Alucard was impressed at her progress as most of her body was now hidden behind the headboard. He wondered if she realized there was no way to get back out once she got back there without help.

"Hazing? The strangest kidnapping of all time, _definitely_. But _hazing_? To get _into_ a place like that? Hell _effing_ no. Fuck _that_ noise." She pulled her head back behind the headboard like a turtle retracting into his shell muttering something about 'never going back to that hell hole again' and some other unkind words about her cult leader being a 'liar' and a 'sociopath'.

Then she said something quite remarkable.

"Really, Vlad, thanks for bringing me here. You would have been well within your natural rights to kill me for going full psycho on you, but I think things are finally turning around."

Though her appreciation for defeat was strange enough, the name which she referred to was far more interesting. He curved over her shadowy hiding place to find her dark blue eyes peeping up at him innocently. "What did you just call me?"

"Er, Vlad?" Her voice was reticent and muffled behind the bed. She may have just realized that there were no better escape options behind the bed than there were out in the open. Instead, she had cornered herself.

"Where did you hear that name?" Alucard's words left his mouth sounding far harsher than he actually felt toward the mistake.

He stood over the backboard and pulled it away from the wall to allow himself access to the girl hidden behind it. The extra space caused her to slip down butt first, then as she tried to grip the edge of the wood, she crashed to the floor where she collected herself into a ball to shove the sheet over her shoulders. Then she looked up at him accusingly, confusion written all over her face.

"Relax, you told me your stupid name years ago." The corners of his mouth dropped at this and the girl's fine features grew weary as if _he_ was the one speaking nonsense. "Did you forget?" she continued, scratching the back of her messy blonde head, "my memory can be pretty fickle too, sometimes."

There was an echo about the way she looked up at him, almost admiringly. An echo of a time when he felt happy. It was something in her expressions and manner of speaking that brought him back to another beautiful young blonde who fought him at every turn.

Yes, fickle indeed little vampire slayer. 

…

The next few days passed in a blur. Angelica holed up in her room without any contact except the mornings. Every morning she woke to a pair of orange tinted glasses and a floppy red fedora.

He was smiling down on her rather enigmatically. She couldn't quite read the meaning behind that smile, at least not as well as she could normally decipher his illusory masks. It was making her kind of nervous and, quite honestly, he was succeeding at getting under her skin. Though, he would never know that.

"Stop doing that." He would command, as if he had some kind of authority over her, even after tossing her in a heap on the ground. This morning he indulged himself by staring at her naked body a little longer than usual with a weird 'deer in the headlights' look. "And what is _that_?" Alucard pointed his index finger to the spot under her left breast. It took a moment to realize what he was looking at. Angelica forgot that it even existed.

"A tattoo." She decided to keep the explanation short knowing his tendency to taunt whatever living creature happened to gain his attention for more than five seconds. Standing slowly and puffing her chest a little so he could get a good look at it before he could ask what it said or why she got it, which were the inevitable following questions that everyone asked for some reason. She didn't bother covering her chest. The vampire had seen her naked every morning since she arrived a month ago. Hell, she even picked up the one breast so he could read it better.

"' _History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme_.'" He read aloud as if she didn't know what her own tattoo said. "Why did you choose to permanently print this on your body?"

It was a rhetorical question. He probably just thought it was stupid. She strode over to the bedside where her white habit lay and knelt to pull the hem over her head, not even bothering with a bra today. Bras were overrated anyway.

While she busied herself with the little tasks involved with waking up, she felt the air slowly becoming tense. Finally, after scrubbing the sand out of her eyes and stretching her sore neck, she stole a glance at her vampiric enemy number one. He looked… displeased.

So, stupidly, she spoke up, "What's up?" He frowned deeply in response, unwilling to answer. He was being a bratty child. Angelica rolled her eyes. "You really want to know about my tattoo? Well, I got it when I was twenty with my fiancé—" Her breath caught in her throat, silencing her windpipe, causing her voice to sound higher as she remembered that fantastic man the way he was. Alucard's blood red eyes narrowed on her aggressively.

She leveled her breathing before she could embarrass herself further. "Mark Twain was my hero growing up, do you know who that is?" He let one eyebrow drift upward slowly and sarcastically. "Yeah, well, he's all about freedom and individuality which I woefully lacked as a kid—"

"You're _still_ a kid-"

"-Do you want to hear what I have to say or was your question just a means to pick a fight?" She said, staring him with an emotionless stare. He took a deep breath, to keep himself from eating her, probably, then spun on a heel to sit on her bed, waiting with his hands cupping one knee as it bent over the other, seemingly polite and proper to anyone who hadn't known him for more than a cursory glance.

" _Anyway_ ," she started, eying him to see if he was planning to interrupt again, "my boyfriend at the time and I got tattoos together, but he had his removed because it faded out too much. 'History does not repeat itself', that is a true statement, history can't repeat itself because what's passed has passed." She watched his expression grow amused as she rubbed her shoulder, the one he shot. That damn muscle really hurt sometimes. "'But it does rhyme', is the second part, I like the quote as a whole because it's saying that maybe history doesn't repeat, it's not exactly the same, but a lot of things can be similar. Similar situations with similar people. War is a good example; people fight and fight for no reason, time after time for similar reasons." She felt her expression begin to fall like a sunken soufflé. "Fighting like that is so stupid, I don't even get why people bother when it doesn't help solve the real problems."

"You're an idiot." He suggested as if the word was written across her face in big red letters. "You believe that all fighting is wrong and that no ideas are worth fighting for."

Angelica sighed. She knew he was trying to goad her into another argument but today wasn't the day. She was achy and frustrated with this whole situation. All she wanted was for Jace to… Her heart pained her. She wanted normalcy again.

"What, no quip or disagreement? You are just going to let me belittle that pathetic intellect you cling to so desperately?" The black hair that swooped long on one side of his face looked like angry tendrils. He was looking for her to fight back. But she wasn't in the fighting back kind of mood today.

"Alucard… please just leave me alone today." She looked down at his eyes as they peeked out from the tops of his orange glasses, giving his eyes a fiery appearance, hoping that just this once he would drop it.

"No." A broad smile began creeping across his lips, if she thought Lydia's smile could kill a cat, Alucard's could slay a dragon.

She wouldn't indulge him any longer, if he wanted to fight, he could beat her up because she was not emotionally stable enough to handle a battle of wills with him at the current moment.

Alucard left her in her room because she made some bogus excuse like she had to pee or something. He bought it well enough. She was due down in the meeting room in a few hours to speak with Integra.

Seres was weary of Angelica's sudden appearance in the mansion, though she would never say so to her face. But Angelica knew and totally got it. This was her prowl, her domain, and here Angelica was, another cat in the basket shaking her little world up so she couldn't avoid the teeth and claws of her masters.

Alucard was always making overt gestures and references toward her, so Angelica kind of figured out what was going on there, but the whole situation was off. She was no moron. She was not going to lie to herself and say that Alucard was ugly by any means. The man was attractive, and so was Seres, they made a great pair, but something was wrong about them. Seres didn't seem in the slightest bit interested in anything Alucard said, like she was off on some distant planet. He was arrogance incarnate and she was a goofy girl with a big heart. Angelica liked her, a lot. She seemed like a wonderful person. Unfortunately she didn't not feel the same way. She thought Angelica was untrustworthy, just like Alucard did.

It was relieving to have one person who believed her history, and that person was Integra. She and Angelica got talking for a number of hours on that first day in the mansion, they agreed on many points regarding religion and diplomacy. Surprisingly enough.

So here Angelica sat, waiting for Integra in her office where she basically lived. Or so it seemed. She had been trying to keep from yawning for the past few minutes to avoid being yelled at by the tall older woman. Instead she made funny faces as her body cried for extra oxygen.

Another ten minutes flew by. She checked her phone light to make sure she hadn't read wrong. The sun shone brightly over the desk, reflecting into her eyes, burning her retinas. Another wave of air swept through her lungs, trying to force a yawn out of her. She gulped it down and distracted herself by reading the name of the papers on Integra's desk. There weren't many, only one or two. She had a deep blue ball point pen standing like it was important next to a stapler which defended the small cage of paperclips that clung to the metal ribs, desperately trying to escape their prison.

"Don't worry little guys, I know how you feel." She muttered to the paperclips, realizing insanity was not as scary as everyone thought.

Then it came, a big burst of energy sent goose bumps up her arms and legs as a huge yawn took over. Tearing slightly, she stretched her arms and groaned, letting the stretch take over, then let her head fall to the side. Immediately sleeping.

Then, "Do you ever experience nightmares, Angelica? Dreams?"

Angelica lifted her bleary eyes to the heiress. Then nodded sleepily.

"What happens in these dreams?"

Angelica tilted her head ever so slightly. No one had ever asked about her dreams before. She wondered if would make her seem more insane than she really was. "I am a little girl. If I sleep for long enough, I can live through her whole life. Is that weird?"

Integra's cigarillo halted midair. She searched Angelica's face for something, but she couldn't be sure what. "Do you see yourself die?"

It was a weird question. "Yeah, I guess sometimes."

"What happens after?"

Angelica closed her eyes. She thought back to the millions of dreams she had over the past year. She hadn't really thought about them too much during her waking hours. "I wake up again as a little girl." She determined.

Integra doused her cigarillo, pressing it hard into her ash tray, it sizzled before a darker plume of smoke appeared then dissipated, leaving only the scent of burning tobacco in the air. She was thinking hard about something. "Do you hear the little girl's name?"

Angelica eyed her possessor. "Why do you want to know that?"

"Answer the question."

Angelica gulped. "I think I once heard the name Artemy? Or maybe Mina?" She looked to the ground, ashamed of her own poor memory. "I don't really know. I might just be making those up."

Little did Angelica know, Integra was suddenly flooded with relief. Some how, some way, they found her. Angelica was the true user of that scythe. It was fascinating. After years of heavy research into the matter, Integra had only found a few bits here and there about the weapon. Once she had it in her possession, and tested it thoroughly, she realized that it was not functioning properly. Years of further devotion to its study proved all but useless, until a passage came along describing the traits of a 'slayer'.

Slayers are the only humans capable of using the weapon for its described purpose. They are a lineage, in a way. But so little was known about them that this was the perfect opportunity for Integra to crack a new field of study wide open. She possessed Angelica and the weapon. Not only could Hellsing remove the threats against humanity, they could cure them. Now, Integra's only job was to make Angelica reconsider her negative feelings toward war.

* * *


	6. Quixotic

 

_Quixotic (adj.):_

Foolishly impractical love.

* * *

She was born to a Serbian lord and beautiful Russian as a peace offering from the czar. Or more, as a demonstration, so the Serbs would cave in and let Russia steal their sovereignty.

The little thing was pulled from the cart by a two leaded collar, tripping and falling to her knees into the filth and mud. They jerked her up to make her stand but only succeeded in dragging her small body as she clutched the collar with bloodied fingers to keep from choking. She was nine years old.

He knew what darkness awaited her at the end of that long road to the palace. It was not his duty or interest to involve himself with another Romanian war. But there was an attraction he felt toward her, not in a physical sense, but an attraction almost like a magnet's pull.

It felt like _empathy_ — a human emotion he'd long forgotten seemed to pop into existence from the moment he laid eyes on her as she dragged her bare feel along the dirt. The emotion felt so fine that he followed the vile brutes she'd been lotted with that day and into the evening. The castle was not massive. He'd lived in larger country homes. The heavy wooden door slammed shut behind her as they threw her inside onto a sheet. Its intended use as a bed the vampire found unsettling. He pressed himself through the wall to observe the small, damaged creature.

Under the moon's illumination, the pale haired child dropped to her knees before the window and clasped her tiny hands together in a shaking, desperate prayer,

"Отче наш, Отче наш, Иже еси на небесех! Да святится имя Твое,

да приидет Царствие Твое, да будет воля Твоя, яко на небеси и на земли. Хлеб наш насущный даждь нам днесь; и остави нам долги наша, якоже и мы оставляем должником нашим;и не введи нас во искушение, но избави нас от лукаваго."

The small girl did not smile once. Her expression was more severe than the most weathered of military men. " _Аминь_."

He didn't know Russian, but he knew that word. "Аминь", pronounced 'amin', was exactly what it sounded like.

Praying? At a time like this? He wasn't sure if he felt more pity or sadness. Two emotions he hadn't really considered in over a century. Yet here he was, standing in the center of a little girl's dungeon, learning that he still had _some_ grasp on humanity.

Like a fire in a dry field, he wanted to stomp it out.

"Your God has forsaken you," he told the girl, stepping closer to her back noiselessly. She turned her head slowly, terrified. There was a quiet pause as he watched her thoughts go silent. She realized he was not one of her captors and there was no longer fear in that imprisoning gaze. She appeared relieved.

"Как тебя зовут?" she asked desperately, scrambling forward on her hands and filthy, bleeding knees. Vlad stood silently, unsure of how to communicate with the child.

She pointed at herself, " Меня зовут… ' _Artemy'_ , kак тебя зовут?" She held her hand on her chest. "Artemy." She repeated. A soft bandaged hand floated toward him as she rose to her feet, taking one short step closer until her tiny hand was placed solidly against his chest and patted a few times then clutched his black tunic. "Кто вы?"

Corn flower blue eyes remained steady as they pinned him where he stood.

_Ah_ , she wanted his name.

Wasn't she frightened of an adult man standing in her room late at night? There should have been a glimmer of terror in her eyes as she spoke. Her sense of self preservation should have drawn her away. But there was nothing. She did not seem happy or sad, afraid or curious. For a child so young, this dry, emotionless expression was disheartening. But he knew that feeling; the feeling of nothingness that came along with this kind of emotional upheaval. The nothingness one feels when one is defiled by the ones they are meant to trust most.

"Vlad." He pressed a hand to his own chest. "It's nice to meet you, Artemy." He covered her small warm hand in his own.

"На каком языке вы говорите?"

What the Hell was she saying?

Without pulling her hand from his she made a screwed up face that could only look cute on a child as her other hand drifted to her mouth. She opened it silently and flipped her hand toward him like she was depicting vomit as she tried to repeat his Romanian words back to him, "eht is nyce toh meet you."

Fine lines appeared between her brows as she concentrated hard on speaking in Romanian. It seemed her mouth was not wide enough to free the words smoothly.

"Vlahd." She attempted to pronounce his name with his own language. A smile grew on his face until it ached his cheeks.

…

He permeated through the thick stone wall and watched her sleep the next night. He knelt next to her bed and watched the fibrous blanket fall and rise. She had a perfectly round face with fair skin and hair. A very Russian looking girl. Far too young to endure these kinds of horrors.

Suddenly a pair of soft hands shot from beneath the blanket and cupped his jaw with passive strength, gently forcing him to look at her. He could have easily escaped in the physical sense, but there was something in those blue eyes that nailed his knees to the ground.

"Ты такая необычная." Her voice was pure and clear in the night. She pinched his chin between her thumb and forefinger to turn his head for further examination. The sensation felt so unspoiled, so natural, that the vampire let it happen. He heard her heart beating through the window, but up close he could smell the bouquet of her blood. It smelled so pure even through the abuse she had endured in exchange for her country's freedom. Humans were vile beings indeed. 

Artemy spoke with a calm veneration that shocked the vampire. "Я мечтал об этом не всю свою жизнь."

He could not understand a word she said. He didn't need to, the way she spoke told him more about her than the language. She placed a small hand on his cheek and ran a thumb under his crimson eye. "Ты такая красивая."

His blood smeared history seemed to wash away as a little girl held his face as tenderly as one might caress a rose petal. In a language he could not understand, forcing emotions he could not seem to sort properly, Artemy affected him. He then decided something that changed his life rather dramatically.

He needed her.

A domesticated human. That's what she would be. She would be a pet. Nothing more.

…

Seeping, flowing from a heap of white blonde hair tangled with disjointed limbs was a flood of red liquid.

" _Necromancer!"_

" _Witch!"_

" _Murderer!"_

They dumped her mangled body near the boarder of Russia and Serbia.

A dark vampire who was still high on blood lust, watched a filthy, over nourished man toss a ragged mess of blood and hair out like common trash as their horses tore off into the distance.

Normally he would have gone after the perpetrators but something else weighed on his mind. In the condition they had left her, she was most certainly dead. Now, at the young age of 14, she was being accused of witchcraft.

He walked to the spot where she lay broken in the dust and gently turned her. He recognized that light hair and round face. The wagon wheel crushed her body, leaving flesh hanging off of jutting bones where they punctured the skin. She was destroyed.

She twitched. Once, then again. One shaken breath, then a second. Like a ghoul, she began to rise, bloodied blue eyes never once leaving his.

"Hurt." She spat through broken teeth, swollen and torn red gums, and a thick accent. It was a miracle he could actually understand her. Her tone should have indicated some kind of accusation, but instead came off as a plea.

Another miracle seemed to take root as her teeth began straightening and sliding back into place. It was like watching her assault in reverse. The shabby woolen skirt she wore was in pieces. The scarf she wore around her head for modesty drooped over her broken shoulders as they shifted and clicked back into place, unbreaking the bone and flesh.

She didn't cry, or ask for his help. She didn't thank him for doing it anyway. She didn't say anything when he picked up the pieces of her broken body and took her away from there.

Both knew what transpired and neither felt compelled to discuss their shared horror at how humans could lack something so vital as their humanity.

…

Over time they learned enough of each other's languages to speak a haphazardly sewn together hybrid of Romanian and Russian. She lived out of different convents across the countries they visited together. No one else had any idea what they said to one another, Vlad liked it that way.

After what seemed like an exceptionally long period of time, Artemy grew into a woman.

And oh how she _bloomed_.

Vlad certainly did not appreciate the attention his little pet commanded in the living world. He knew what those fiends desired of his beautiful pet human. And they would always perish when they tried.

Only _he_ could have such indecent thoughts about _his_ human girl.

…

"I'm going." She told him. She never asked, only informed. It made him feel unnecessary, although he knew that was not the case.

Vlad frowned. He did not approve of her leaving by any stretch of the imagination. He wanted her all for himself.

At first he felt strange viewing her as a sexual being, but that wore off as quickly as she began developing. She was his ideal female. He always did have a thing for blondes.

Artemy was tall and voluptuous, even in her habit she managed to gain unwanted attention from any male she came in contact with. Vlad did not appreciate when others tried to take ownership of his possessions. So he planned to take her body, her blood, her soul, so no one could ever take her from him again. Nor could she ever choose to leave, like she tried to do at the present time.

She was difficult to reach on most days. Yet the days that she smiled, oh how she would smile; those days made everything, every effort, every kill, and every restraint on his strength, worth it.

He only kissed her once. She didn't appreciate it. The snap of her glove across his face sent him giggling like a child. She didn't like his methods, but she didn't really have a choice but to put up with him for a time.

The vampire didn't particularly enjoy letting her go anywhere alone. She seemed to attract a rash of incidents that were always horrible by nature. She attracted these things by behaving a certain way unconsciously.

For example, Artemy would never bend through her knees, instead she would go straight down to pick things up from the floor. He wondered if she knew that she was putting her body in the most delightfully provocative position or if she simply wanted to stretch her hamstrings. He suspected Artemy had no clue exactly how tantalizing she was to the common man.

His groin ached as she moved about, collecting her few and scattered things for church. She arched her back to collect violets from the grass, perching her bottom sky high for him to enjoy. He wondered how many centuries would pass before she let him touch. He wanted to make Artemy his in every possible way. Never before had a woman fashioned such a challenge for him. Vlad enjoyed a good challenge.

Artemy left that morning for the convent "for the last time". But, as usual, she couldn't stay away for long.

…

"Artemy?"

Pale blue eyes flickered to his from her position knelt in front of the plain golden cross. A penumbra of fine white granite adorned the front of her favorite eastern orthodox establishment of tomfoolery. Those eyes were all he needed to know her attention was his.

His heart squirmed. He wanted to tell her. The pressure of holding his words was becoming too great as these many years together passed in silence. He smiled, the words tingled the sharp tip of his tongue.

Then he chickened out.

Instead he asked, "Back then, why were you marked a witch? For such a devout woman, it seems …" A smile played his lips as her eyes jerked back to the cross. "…démodé."

The girl, now twenty three years, bowed her head slightly allowing her amorphous slate grey babushka and platinum hair to cascade over her face. For a number of years he managed to ignore the flame she somehow managed to light in his dead heart, but it grew tiresome to fight it. His appearance was something he prided himself with. Woman would fall at his feet left and right, living and dead. He could cause feral reactions in the most puritan woman. And yet, his pet couldn't care less.

The evocative way she moved paired with the natural symmetry of her face created the perfect storm of desire that was slowly eating him alive. Even now as she prayed before a cross, begging for God's forgiveness, her innocence and purity were a siren's song.

Lifting her face to the sun like a flower in spring she spoke with a whisper light as the breeze. "A weapon resides behind those stone walls where you first discovered me. It produced volatile reactions on those who tried to touch it." Rosy color livened her face from the sun as she bent her neck at a ninety-degree angle to look at his face above. The babushka fell back, exposing her neck, hair flitting about in the light breeze. Her sillage was sweet and enchanting, a sinister grin ebbed to widen across the vampire's lips as he imagined the feel of his teeth sinking into that soft flesh. She continued, "I was unaware of this rumor when I picked it up to clean the broken glass beneath. Something happened."

Haze, like that of an ancient mirror, clouded over her widening eyes as she fell silent.

This dazed expression was not uncommon. She suffered a similar fate to his when she was young. At times her mannerisms would droop, her face would draw out and her eyes would go into a trancelike state for several moments before returning to reality.

Vlad waited for her condition to pass in silence.

"…I'm yet to think of the proper words to describe the occurrence. People died." The whisper of Artemy's words started again softly, "another servant witnessed this and informed Lord Matija that I was a witch. When the servants later found them drained of blood in my room, they assumed it was my own doing."

A tight, impressed smirk widened across his face. His little pet was far more interesting than he knew. "You were a tough kid."

The reflection of his violent red seemed out of place in her clear blue eyes as they dropped back to the cross, pleadingly. "Vlad, I'm not coming back this time."

The black haired vampire leaned against the tall golden cross heavily with a smirk. "What makes you think I plan to let you leave?"

Her eyes jerked to his slouched form disapprovingly. "You will not make me stay."

She was right, he wouldn't, but that didn't mean she would get away without hearing his side. "After all I've done to keep you alive you join a fucking convent? Quite the dramatic child you are. It was just a kiss, it wasn't the first and it will not be the last."

As soon as the words left him he felt hot remorse shoot from his stomach through his dead, black heart. He knew any and all physical contact she had with other men was brutal from too young. It was wrong to play on those traumatic emotions. He moved through the cross and picked her up by the front of that white day dress. "Go on, say it. Admit to yourself you ungrateful child. Tell me that you would be dead if I hadn't come along." She fell limp in his grasp, unfighting, and simply looked at him entirely unimpressed by his threatening speech. Her eyes were always so forgiving. It only pissed him off further.

His massive fist clenched scratchy white fabric tighter as he heard it begin to strain painfully and he pulled her face closer, lifting her chin with an unoccupied hand. He moved her head to the side, running the tip of his nose along the column of her throat. "I could _make_ you stay…"

From the corner of his eye he watched her eyes gently drift closed. Praying.

Without the recoiling, terror filled reaction he craved, he dropped her indelicately to the dirt where she scrambled to her feet. She brushed herself off indignantly and strutted away, back straight and tall, and proud. Then, she stopped to look over her shoulder expectantly. His underhanded means of debate bothered her to no end, though she never expressed it outright.

He tore his eyes away from Artemy's stretched and dusty habit and how nicely it fit around the swell of her fine hips. Pouting like a child, he chained his gaze to the distant mountains behind the pointless shrine to a holy dead man. Did she care at all? Did she appreciate all he did for her?

Desperate to make her reconsider her vows, he finally asked, "What do you think… about me?"

Her shoulders rose delicately as she inhaled and turned to face him fully. The fair, eggshell smooth skin between her eyebrows creased slightly in taut concentration as if trying to decipher an enigmatic puzzle. After a few moments of silent deliberation she responded matter-of-factly, "Right now, you remind me more of an insolent child than a man aged 433."

Then, after a brief silence she added softly, "You love me."

His unbeating heart tightened. _Was it really that obvious?_ He wondered. It felt like being torn apart and reconstructed all at the same time. Both painful and idyllic. Ignorant of the cataclysmic war she sparked inside of the tall, beautiful vampire's soul, she stood there without a trace of emotion showing on her face.

She continued with that frustratingly stoic expression firmly back in place. "And it doesn't matter what you are so long as that fact remains the same."

She spoke in perfect Romanian these days. Vlad was not particularly interested in learning Russian while Artemy seemed to enjoy the challenge of learning a new language. As usual she did not smile or give any sign of emotion on the subject, but her actions provided more information than her words ever could. Their relationship felt tremendously one sided. Artemy never seemed to feel _anything_ ; neither good nor bad. Vlad would have torn his heart from his own chest for her, being the melodramatic person he was. It was almost unbearable.

"It's disrespectful to behave so detached in the light of such an emotional admission." He tried not to seem phased with a looping grin.

"It is not my occupation to make you feel better." Artemy turned without another word to walk to the monastery alone for the last time.

…

She was twenty five when she died in his arms, a year after she left him alone on that briar. His bloody tears fell over her face.

He wanted to see that ghost of a smile. The one she tried to hide when he would touch her hair or touch her skin. He wanted to see her lids go half mast and float there helplessly just as she drifted to sleep. He wanted to see her make the most vile combinations of fish loaf, sweet cheese doughnuts and pickled vegetables. He wanted to get sick again by trying one of them just to make her hide a laugh.

Just one more time. Was that too much to ask from her omnipotent god?

…

Angelica stood there for a solid two minutes watching him stare at the scythe with this expression like he was going to die.

"I can help you, you know." She finally stated, not removing her own eyes from the weapon where it hung like a trophy on the treasury wall.

"Do I look like I need help?" A challenging black eyebrow rose.

"Yes. Yes you do. Even if you don't want to tell me, tell Seres or Integra or someone. It's sickening to see someone like you this quiet." She started, then decided to go in another direction. The girl looked at her hand that had once belonged to someone else. "This endlessness that you feel... I think I understand."

His ears perked, waiting for an explanation that she wouldn't give unless he asked. She began walking away when a cool hand gripped her wrist gently enough to let her escape but firm enough that his intention was clear.

"Tell me what you mean Slayer. How could you possibly understand the misery of immortality?" His ruby eyes penetrated the back of her skull, she could see them clearly in her mind. The velveteen texture of his voice was fascinating, alluring.

"It's hard to explain."

"Do it anyway."

Turning her head ever so slightly, she made sure he could see the sardonic raise of brow. "Okay, basically I have these nightmares-"

"-You think you can grasp immortality because of some artless dreams-"

"-Interrupt again and you'll never know." She threatened sharply with a small, knowing smile; he reluctantly fell into silence. "Here it is. Basically I have these 'long term dreams' as I've come to call them. In the space of a typical night's sleep, these seem to drag on for days, months, sometimes years, a few of them even seem to stretch over decades." Angelica described as she turned slowly to face the pale monster. "They're the lives of other people. They're very detailed and some are really horrible. It seems that no matter how many years pass by in these dreams that I still have another human lifetime ahead of me."

Alucard caught the hint of bitterness in her tone. Her desolation almost amused him, but not quite. "Enjoy your transience. Death and age are truly beautiful."

Suddenly realizing with a quickening tempo of her pulse that his hand was still wrapped around hers, she pulled it from his gentle grip and began walking away again as a cover up for the blush on her face. But she stopped in the doorway to explain, "you'd think that death is the end, but I've died so horribly so many times that I'd really like to just be done with it."

Seemingly out of no where he asked softly, his interest suddenly piqued, "how detailed are these memories?"

Her face turned back to the door so he could only see her eyelashes over her cheekbone. " _'Please don't leave me here alone_.'" She copied the intonation of the voice she always heard in her nightmares. Alucard's smile fell into a line as she went on, "Someone cries over my body in this recurring nightmare. He begs me not to die. I can feel hot tears falling all over my face as I fade into oblivion. Then it all starts over again."

Angelica ambled on down the hall toward Integra's office as if she hadn't just rocked Alucard's whole world off its happily spinning axis.

Unable to move, Alucard became a marble fixture for a solid ten minutes as he carefully considered her words.

She heard him say those things? The thought made his insides curl nervously. She knew that he loved her, she heard him say it dozens of times, but for Artemy to know how hard he fought to turn her into a vampire… For her to hear him beg like a child...

Angelica felt everything Artemy once did. She could tell him everything Artemy felt, saw and heard. She could answer those many unanswered questions.

After that strange interaction days went by where Angelica would not spare him a passing glance. It was annoying. Even as he tormented her, digging deep into her psyche to pull out the most rancid insults and fears he could conjure, she could offhandedly turn away his every word. It was annoying because Angelica was beginning to act like his Artemy when she had no right to torture him that way.

"If you have nothing nice to say then please get the fuck out of my face." She smiled sweetly as she pushed his hand out of the way to continue reading whatever book Integra had given her this time. The girl was always reading. She read scripture, English literature, poetry, textbooks, even the little words along the edges of restaurant menus. It took her time away from answering his endless questions about her past lives and it was unceasingly irritating.

But then the tables suddenly turned on him and he was left feeling defensive of his vampiric nature.

"Do you drink blood from goblets to feel human?"

"Yes."

"That's interesting." Angelica wrote something on a note pad as she slouched against _his_ chair in _his_  basement.

"What are you doing, exactly?"

"Learning."

"Elaborate, Slayer."

"Integra asked me to learn more about vampires so that I know what to do when we go after the IRA."

"I don't see why she insists on packing us with your dead weight."

She didn't react, not even a frown or a change in mood. She simply did not care what he said to her because she didn't care one way or the other for him. It was something that frustrated him more than he'd like to admit.

"Are you afraid of me, Slayer?"

"That's a good joke, please, tell it again."

"Your humor is lacking."

"So are your manners."

"Tell me, do your other souls ever come out to speak for you?"

Her brows dropped. "What do you mean?"

"The other souls living within you, do they ever speak in your dreams?"

Angelica had become a staple in his dark basement. After weeks of pestering her for answers about her inner souls she had suddenly become obsessed with learning more about vampires and now she would only leave to eat, drink, and sometimes sleep. Though he had let her fall asleep against his throne several times with her pen in hand, head lolling gently against his forearm.

Her brows lowered, eyes swimming with confusion and curiosity. "Other souls? I'm not sure I understand…"

He hated that _he_ was the one who was forced to explain this to her. "You are the reincarnation of the dozens of previous owners of that scythe."

Angelica's face drained of blood. She had the sinking suspicion that he was telling the truth, but that went against any and all logic. She was only just coming around to the concept of God and supernatural beings. How could she be expected to accept that she was the reincarnation of Mary?

"I'm not her, you know. That can't be true."

"Mary of Nazereth, no. But the dozens of pure souls chosen by God to use that weapon reside within you. So, I will ask only one more time. Do you ever speak to them?"

Her whole body went cold. "So my dreams, they're…"

"You are reliving your past lives, yes."

A thrill swirled through her stomach. "All of that suffering… it was real? How?" That vague curiosity solidified into a sharper determination as some theory became clear. "Is that why your bullets couldn't kill me?"

Alucard's swirling goblet halted, she was much quicker than he gave her credit for. "Would you like for me to test them again?"

Angelica's voice grew nervous as she eyed him for any obvious weapons. "That's okay, I'll pass. And to answer your question, no. I'm sorry. I don't ever interact with them. I guess I just relive their lives in my dreams." Some new thought was on the tip of her tongue that she decided not to share. 

"Therefore you would be able to reiterate their sensations and emotions." He spoke absently, looking her over the way a wolf watches a deer.

Angelica felt vulnerable and exposed as a young defenseless fawn, as if his predatory eyes were peering straight through her every fiber. "I guess I could… What are you getting at, Alucard?"

The gaudy wine glass began swirling again in silence.

"Nothing."


	7. Ignoratio Elenchi

 

_Ignoratio Elenchi_ _(n.):_

_A fallacy in logic of supposing a point proved or disproved by an argument proving or disproving something not at issue._

_Latin, literally, ignorance of proof._

* * *

"Chocolate milk." Blue eyes found their way to the dark figure standing above, looking like his eyes might roll backwards in a fit of frustrated sarcasm. Something about her benign request infuriated and exasperate him all at once. Something about that set alight a little spark of glee in Angelica's belly. A big grin crawled across her lips, exposing perfectly straight teeth from years of braces. "Yup, definitely chocolate milk."

The vampire stood tall, upwards of 6 feet, maybe, probably more. He made a very tall arched doorway look normal-sized, and made any room feel small. Or at least it felt as if the air left the room as soon as he entered one. Or maybe it was just Angelica who felt that way.

Orange glassed eyes narrowed in on her where she sat on the floor on her back, reading under a broad ray of sunlight from the large window to the left of her bed. "Of all the things—"

"That's what I want." She interrupted like he was a nuisance child interrupting her quiet time. Goadingly she added with a sly grin and teasingly narrowed eyes, "Or did I misunderstand the question?"

At her sharp sardonic response he dropped his semi-kind gesture for a beverage and instead turned on his heel, not looking back to say, "Integra is expecting you in the conference room."

Now it was her turn to be embarrassed. The guy had merely asked if she wanted something to drink and she turned it into a battle of wills. Typical. "Oh, right, thanks..." She searched her mind for the right name to fit his face, but every time she called him by the name that came to mind she knew he would become irritated with her. So to play it safe she just asked, "What was your name again?" She knocked lightly on her head with a soft fist, grinning sheepishly, "Sorry, bad memory. The doctor said something about post-traumatic psychogenic amnesia or something, it comes and goes."

Again he appeared the embodiment of exasperation. "Alucard."

Her brows knit together lightly, tapping her index finger in the air as if writing an equation, "Wait, isn't that just Dracula spelled backw-"

"You are trying my patience, Slayer."

...

"Alucard, you could at least _try_ not to spark another fight with that girl. Though she may not seem like much, she's able to use the scythe. You know what that means." Integra's blue eyes honed in on the lurking vampire. "You made a rather dire miscalculation. Seres is not the reincarnation we sought." With a wave of her hand she dismissed the tall creature. "Reconcile with the girl as best you can. The cultists are planning to take her back along with the scythe." A noticeable flare ignited in Alicard's flaming eyes at the thought. A smile made its way across her face. "Irons has already provided our new helicopter, I'm sending Seres to the London Library to collect records on every German sect and their histories." Those all seeing blue eyes scrambled over her vampire's face, he smile falling to a neutral look of displeasure. "You look exhausted, did you stay up with her all day?"

He wasn't one to lie, but he also was not entirely honest when he said, "I was concerned for your safety, my master."

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, facial muscles tightened under wrinkled skin. "Did you learn anything of interest?"

"She still maintains that the threat on her life was the gun to her head forcing her to attack me in her ever so effective way." He leaned heavily against Integra's large desk. "Whatever cult is behind these ongoing killings must be new, young and disorganized. Some sects might not know you have the real, albeit pathetic, Slayer in your possession."

Integra was not overly impressed with his answer, but she let it slide. "Another question, if you don't mind my asking." An evil little expression made its way onto her face. "Why does she insist on sleeping unclothed? You haven't..."

A look of true insult found a home on his expressive face. "Have you ever known me to be so cruel?"

No, she hadn't, it was an unfounded accusation. But she had to be sure. "I'll see you tonight, my Count."

...

Angelica didn't plan to run into him again later, she really didn't. But they always had this uncanny luck of running into one another all the time, even in such a massive mansion.

Of course she couldn't just pass him by without saying something combative.

"Where's my scythe?" She tried to appear nonchalant about it, though in her soul (if that's really a thing) she ached for it like a drug. It pulled painfully from the inside like a broken heart.

He didn't turn those red eyes to her, instead opting to make her go slightly insane by barely acknowledging her existence, like she typically did to him when he haunted her around asking her about her dreams. It wasn't until he noticed that she stopped to watch him walk away that he finally said, "The Scythe has been returned to its rightful place in the Hellsing treasury safe." Then continued his walk down the hall. Angelica followed close behind, feeling that there needed to be a bit more information for her. She needed to get it back.

She followed his shadow and stuttered, "B-But I need it."

"For what?"

"I- ehm. How do I explain this. If I don't use the thing for a while I start to get, well, sick." She shuddered just thinking about how weak she was feeling and how her hallucinations of blood and death had begin to resurface. It started in the pit of her stomach and chilled her blood.

Alucard barely looked at her before answering, "You've become addicted to its power."

"No I haven't!" Her face lit up red. How dare he! "It's an actual physical reaction, even my skin tone changes. It's the strangest thing."

"Addiction can be physical, you stupid girl. I said no, now stop being such a child."

"I'm 23." She narrowed her eyes at him and his brow lifted. "I'm not quite an adult since the prefrontal cortex doesn't finish developing until you're about 25 years old." She gave him a dead pan look as his narrow gaze softened at the number before adding, "Blame the prefrontal cortex."

He ignored her little tangent and opened her door for her. "Stay here until further instructions are given."

She strode through the doorway before turning to face him with a passive expression. "Sounds good to me."

He softly laughed condescendingly. If that's even a thing. "What? No fighting words? No tough talk?"

Angelica took a deep breath and shrugged. "I'm used to being holed away by a dickwad captor, so I'm just not impressed." Alucard rose an eyebrow at her, forcing her to acknowledge the general splendor around her. "Ok fine, I'm impressed. Really, _really_ impressed. This place _is_ beautiful, but don't you think this kind ostentatious? Why not donate most of it?" She lifted a hand to flick the doorknob, giving out a bright clinging nose. "I mean _really_ , who needs doorknobs made of solid gold?"

Alucard appeared a bit more insulted by her comment than she expected. "Let me ask you this. Do rich men make doorknobs with their bare hands? What about those who make Turkish rugs and statues?"

Angelica was a little confused, but she was following. "Erm, I guess-"

But the dark vampire continued as if she hadn't made a sound, "Are you one of those under the false impression that donated money somehow goes directly to the mouths of the starving? Or building homes of the needy? It's time to enter the real world, little girl. Fantasy land is dead and gone."

She stood there for a moment and thought about what he was implying and came to her own conclusion, "Well of course donated money is broken up, but when you buy a golden doorknob is the money really going to the workers, or the rich guy who owns the mine? Or the owner of the company instead of the craftsmen who actually created it? Both systems are pretty messed up and both need work, but I just think this kind of opulence is unnecessary."

Then, a crackling voice yelled down the hall, coming closer with each word: "Will you two stop shouting! Alucard, go to sleep."

Alucard rolled brightly colored eyes with a wide, teasing grin, "Of course, my master."

Integra turned to the younger woman with a firm expression. "Angelica, come with me. Seres and I would like to discuss the internal workings of the facility in which you were held."

"Yes, sir."

...

A loud, wobbly plop accompanied Seres when she dropped the maps and documents on the library table before Angelica. She shrunk away as Integra explained their purpose, "These are documents relating to every religious movement in Germany since the war."

A finger ran along the edge of one of the maps, uncurling it against the table only for it to spring back into a perfect curl. "That's a lot of paper."

Alucard leaned over the back of her chair, his shadow joining hers, casting long across the table. "Is that a problem, Angelica?"

She was uncomfortable being so close to him. She leaned forward and gathered the papers before her into a more coherent pile. "N-no, it's just a little daunting, that's all."

Seres grinned brightly and sat down across the table, grabbing at an old, frail paper. "Okay! Lets get to work, which stack do you want?" "

"The three of you could probably knock all of this out in a few days." Integra commented as she walked away.

"Days?!" Angelica's mouth fell open, looking from the papers to Integra as if begging for help.

Alucard pushed away from Angelica's chair, sitting on the table beside her right arm, blocking her view of his master. "Yes, Slayer. Three days. Is that an inconvenience?"

"Weren't you sent to bed?" Her brows dropped and she moved her arm away from his vibrant red leg, trying her best not to acknowledge how nice he smelled as she snipped at him, "if you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all." She pretended to ignore him and picked up a stapled stack of papers.

Seres shuffled through some old news articles. "Ooo, this one is from the war, wow, it's been a long time now, hasn't it?" She looked up to Alucard, handing him the page with a nostalgic look about her.

The shaggy haired blonde frowned at the pretty vampire. "What war?"

"The 'aircraft incident' surely you've heard of it." Alucard answered for her.

Angelica's pupils dilated. "Oh right, that was, what, 40 years ago? My parents didn't want me going to Europe at all because of what happened there."

Again, Alucard answered, "Your parents are smart people."

" _Were_." She corrected, feeling her heart shrink as she held back tears. "And you wouldn't say that if you had met them. They were sweet, but completely closed minded."

Alucard hated that sad expression. She was a bright light that didn't deserve the dark future she had in store.

All was silent for the remainder of the day and night as they read. Angelica found herself glancing to the tall vampire to her right every once in a while to catch his eyes looking right at her. Quickly, caught, she looked back to the pages in her hands. Something made her a bit jittery around him lately. She was so nervous when he looked at her, even though she already had a very vague understanding as to why. Inside her soul, she contained the souls of someone he once knew. And if someone asked her, she'd be willing to bet he cared a lot for that person. No matter how much he denied it.

Rereading a paragraph three of four times, Seres finally announced a small victory over the mountains of paperwork, "Hey, it's not much, but I found a few sentences about a cult called _Guardian_. It says that they, 'broke away from the Catholic Church for their distain for idolatry.' What do you think that means?"

Angelica just shrugged. She didn't know the first thing about the hierarchy of religion. So Alucard, their house specialist, explained, "when they reject idolatry it means that this group believes that the pope and saints should not be worshiped. That God is the only one who deserves their praise."

Then, something dawned on Angelica. "Wait. What was the name again?"

"Guardian"

Her mouth fell open as the pieces started to fit together. "That's it! They were the ones who sent that check! Oh my God. How did I never notice!" The two vampires watched the human woman shove from the table and begin to pace, wracking her hand through her short hair. "Just before I left for my semester abroad a check was deposited in my account under the name 'Guardian LLC.' stating that it was a scholarship."

Alucard growled under his breath, "And you didn't think this was important _before_?"

Angelica stopped her pacing to get in his face. "No, it wasn't really on the forefront of my mind when I _was_ _fucking_ _kidnapped_."

The pretty blonde vampire put a hand between their faces and gave Angelica a big, nervous grin. "Stop it guys! All that matters is that we know what it's called. That means we can run a check on all companies by that name in Belfast. Once we find the location we can go and kick some cultist butt!"

Angelica rocked back a step and gave the two a sad stare. "You guys want to kill him, don't you?" Alucard looked like he was about to argue with her about something so she cut him off before he could, "He was always good to me, almost like we were friends. It felt like he didn't want to do those things, like something, or someone, was _making_ him do it." A deep, overwhelming sadness swirled in her stomach, looking down to her battered converse. "He never touched my skin in all the time I spent there it was like he was afraid of repercussions or something."

A little later Integra found her way back to them and the two Hellsing watchdogs gave her the rundown of what they'd discovered. The far older woman turned on her. "Tell us everything you remember. Draw out a map. A detailed one."

Something else occurred to Angelica. "What're you going to do with his pets?"

" _Pets_?"

"Yeah, he has a bunch of creatures in captivity. It was my job to feed them, so I kind of named them all." She hated to think they would kill them. She had actually grown accustomed to their care. They wouldn't just kill some defenseless animals… right?

"They are to suffer the same fate as their master." The much larger vampire stated without an ounce of remorse.

Her mouth fell open at Alucard's heartless plan. Not that she should have expected any more out of him. "But they didn't do anything wrong, that's not fair!"

He leaned from his tall height until they were face to face for the second time that day. "Who ever gave you the misconception that life is fair?"

The way he kept coming close to her was beginning to make Angelica's pulse freak out. It made it hard to concentrate on anything but those incredibly interesting eyes. But, in an attempt to look strong, she straightened and replied with a firm voice, "It's not right to hurt something for no reason."

"That's _your_ opinion." His eyes narrowed, his lips slightly pouted. "Stop laughing."

The human buttoned her mouth shut, but couldn't fully hide her mocking smile. "You act like a little kid when you're wrong."

He rolled his eyes and turned to Integra, who was just watching the little scene unfold with a secret smile on her lips. "Master, we should get going."

Angelica let go of the tough façade. "Wait. Where are you going-?"

Integra answered this time, an aggressive glint shined in her eye, "to find this cult and kill every last one of them."


	8. Ethos, Logos, Pathos

_Ethos, Logos, Pathos (n.):_

_1\. Modes of persuasion, also known as ethical strategies or rhetorical appeals._

_2\. Ethos is an appeal to authority. Logos is an appeal to logic using facts and figures. Pathos appeals to another's emotions._

* * *

When his feet touched the helipad he stood and listened quietly for a minute.

There was a disturbance in the air.

Alucard set off, sensing the world around him. When he approached his original goal he suddenly changed directions. The Slayer wasn't in her usual hiding place in the library surrounded by neuroanatomical models and theoretical literature. After a week away from Hellsing he seemed to have lost his ability to feel where she lurked. This inability to pinpoint her exact location was incredibly frustrating. There was a vague feeling drawing him to the far end of the manor. His smile shrunk, eyes narrow. She had no business down there.

Her breaths were heavy heaves as she dropped to the padded floor like a sack of limbs. The inside of her chest was on fire, her throat attempting to close.

Now would be good time to tell Seres about her exercise-induced asthma. She flopped onto her back and held her heart as if she might die in the next second.

"C'mon Angelica, Master will never let you tag along if you can't fight!" Her cheerful coach had a disappointed note to her voice, coaxing her to a seated position with her arm. The amorphous energy that was her other appendage reached toward the discarded Scythe. The choppy haired blonde on the floor screamed and jerked her backwards onto her butt.

"Are you insane! You can't touch that! It'll hurt you!" Angelica leaped over the vampire's shoulder faster than Seres had ever seen the girl move in their many months together.

Seres blinked, shocked by the outburst. It took a lot of effort for her to take Angelica seriously. Now that she was becoming a more permanent figure in the manor she felt obligated to try and accept Integra's decision. Even Alucard was being a little nicer to her before he left to find the guy who kidnapped Angelica. If Master had learned to like the girl then maybe she could too.

Angelica dragged her limp, sweaty self to her knees and flipped the Scythe. It automatically clasped into the sheath on her back with a sharp metallic click.

As if it wasn't enough to use this weapon against vampires and ghouls, which she was already hesitant to do, Seres was now teaching her how to kill humans as well. Angelica had a lot of doubts. It was one thing to purify a ghoul's unfortunate soul or send a vampire to its death, but it was never in her job description to kill normal people. That compromise stretched her boundaries too far as it is.

Seres explained that there were human enemies they'd have to face as well, paladins and warrior priests who would try to take her with them and kill Alucard, though Angelica doubted anything could kill him if the aircraft incident didn't. Though, when confronted with her theory, Alucard assured her that immortality was a myth then proceeded tease her for being a pacifist when the world is a violent sphere of death and evil. Or something like that. 

To satisfy Integra's demand for competent guard dogs Angelica went along with these daily sparring matches with one of the most deadly women on earth. Seres didn't come off dangerous, not with the same spine tingling fear Alucard's shady presence came with. But she was terrifying if it meant protecting one or both of her Masters.

It was always interesting to her that Seres had absolutely no interest in her own wellbeing, only Alucard's. Being bonded with him as Master and servant must have left a mark on their relationship. 

At first Angelica found their relationship a bit romantic, but the more time the three of them spent together the more she realized that Seres was utterly uninterested in Alucard that way. He had this seductive charm about him, that much was obnoxiously apparent. He even used that charm to mess with her sometimes. But not very often, he could probably hear how his gentle flirtation made her heart race and it was easy to read the confusing feelings it caused on her face.

But she had a pretty effective defense. All she had to do was bring up Jace in any capacity. The sound of his name made Alucard drop any false pretense of interest. It didn't matter the context, he simply couldn't hear her ex-fiancé's name without balking, momentarily dazed, then disappearing through the floor or walls or shadows. She couldn't help but wonder if he had a bit of possessiveness when it came to the women in the manor.

He was very possessive of Integra, which much was painfully clear. Seres didn't need as much protecting, but it seemed he would likely do whatever he had to in order to keep her safe as well. His recent campaign against Angelica's attendance at their IRA attack was what prompted her to pay more attention to his behavior around her. Perhaps he had finally accepted her into their ranks, that might explain his sudden defiance in that regard. After all, their flight wasn't for a few more months so they could prepare. She had plenty of time to become proficient with her scythe.

"Okay! Again!"

Angelica's head dropped heavily. She was a lab rat, not a gym rat! She hadn't suffered through this much physical exertion since track practice in high school. Even then she wasn't using the muscles Seres was beating into her now.

She couldn't lie and say that she didn't like the results of her efforts. Her muscle tone was increasing slowly, for the first time in forever she could see her triceps and a little definition in her quads. Her forearms were definitely the most sculpted from the endless swooshes and jabs.

A grunt pushed from her nose as she struggled against Seres's arm, trying to escape a police hold without the use of her scythe. Without it she felt weaker, but Seres wanted to see if Angelica had improved her technique. Angelica squeezed an arm between her chest and the hard white marble elbow cinching her down, quickly reaching behind Seres's head and tightening her core muscles, she managed to force herself down and out, turning on a dime to face her opponent only to feel the blood drain from her whole body and out of the soles of her feet.

Alucard stood tall in the place she expected to find Seres. He wasn't wearing his glasses or fedora, this room must have been dark enough at this time of dusk for him to feel more at ease. Only now she wished they were there to help her hide from the fury aimed at her. 

His black hair swooshed elegantly down one side of his hollowed cheek, the lines of his face were pinched as if considering something terribly evil. He wanted to punish her for going against his wishes to remain a soft little veal. Probably to keep her defenseless when he eventually decided to eat her.

"What?" She barked, baffled by his sudden contempt. Why should she and Seres rot here while he went out and collapsed Guardian's many bases? He was the only one who rejected her attempts to become self-sufficient. He wanted to see her fail so she couldn't go with them to Belfast in December and it was completely infuriating.

He didn't speak. He drifted forward as if on ice-skates and cupped the side of her entire head with one hand sending her jaw length hair shooting in every direction like a big puff ball. The fury in his expression melted into something deeper, more ruminating. Angelica's heart raced, aching the middle of her chest as she felt his gloved fingertip sweep across her cheekbone. He had been so tense a moment ago, what changed?

He was lost in thought so she took advantage of his distraction, backing away with a large, deliberate step.

She felt that racy feeling in her heart before. She was not about to catch feelings for a vampire, especially when Jace was out in the world somewhere. Probably searching for her. Or maybe not. Who knew? Actually, that thought brought up a lot of difficult questions she actively chose not to think about at that exact moment.

Black brows dropped, disliking her reaction to his touch. Then one curved, lifting questioningly.

Angelica tried not to feel too shaken by his painfully handsome features as his eyes locked onto her, remembering the feeling he elicited the last time he gave her that look. "Uh, I, um, what happened to Seres?"

His lids fell half-mast, amused with her stuttering concern. "I sent her away."

Now that she knew for sure that they were completely alone in the huge gym Angelica couldn't contain the blush creeping up her neck. His eyes felt like warm palpating fingertips across her body when he slid them from her eyes to her workout clothes that were almost a second skin, down to her feet then slowly felt their way back up and over her curves, ending back at her eyes.

Being alone with him made her understand exactly how weak she was by comparison. It was the largest factor driving her to become stronger. She didn't want to be seen as the pathetic little human they allowed into their group. "Do you have any idea how annoying your little interrupting habit is? Integra wants her to teach me how to fight."

His expression always told her far more than his words did. It was as if he couldn't control the way his facial muscles reacted to his emotions. They were a direct reflection of his inner thoughts. He hated the idea of her tagging along and he was upset that she was so angry about it.

Angelica defended Integra's decision heartily, ignoring the touch of sympathy she felt in her chest. "Well, I can't get myself killed when we go to Ireland. You should want me in peak condition to go up against those guys if they're really after me. I get that you're still bitter," she rolled her eyes with a little smirk, "because that makes up about twenty percent of your entire personality," there was a tiny blip of humor in his hooded eyes as he gazed down at her, "but by now you have to know I'm not involved with those guys. I never worked with them, they just held me captive for a while."

"Forget it Slayer." A relieved grin pulled his toothy smile wide, he reached across the distance between them and dropped his hand over her head, ruffling her short hair a little. "You're not going."

Then without another word he disappeared, leaving her in that huge padded room all alone with this strange sense that he was going to be the death of her.

...

"Wait, you're really leaving again?" Angelica had to jog to keep up with Alucard's long strides just a few hours later. She had seen him drifting past the library with a particularly determined look about him and boy was she glad she decided to chase him down. 

His dimples deepened with his smirk. She took that as a big ole yepper.

"You're joking. You only just got back!" She hoped he was going to laugh but alas he didn't and she was left believing the unbelievable. "But you can't leave right now! I'm supposed to go with you!" Seres was popping in and out of doors with her arms full of artillery shells as Angelica tailed Alucard to his destination across the Hellsing campus, toward the loud thrum of helicopter props.

That damn vampire spun around so quickly that it looked like his head had twisted on his shoulders as he hovered over her, forcing her back a step. "You're soft, weak. You'll never survive that level of violence."

Angelica's brows lowered, pinching together slightly, regaining her step until her gnarled nose nearly touched his as she growled, " _Violence_? You're just going to kill everyone without even _trying_ to see their side?"

Along with his slightly widening grin, a dangerous gleam sharpened his glowing red eyes. He was silently telling her to shut up and go away. He didn't reply, only swooshing back to a lengthened walk, or a very fast glide, Angelica wasn't sure because she couldn't take her eyes off the back of his head, the brim of his hat bounced with every step. He was biting his tongue at the worst time. Of course the one time she was desperate to hear his inner thoughts he decides to hide them away.

Angelica scowled as she chased the tall vampire down the hallway. "You're so wound up that you can't even see what's going on here! Everything, and I mean _everything_ is driven by instinct! If they feel threatened by Hellsing we can-"

"There is no 'we' in this, Slayer. Stay out of it. I wouldn't want your little pacifist mind to become twisted. It might do something horrible like change your perspective for the first time in your worthless little life."

That stung. Angelica lunged forward to grab his arm to make him look at her but her hand slid through the limb like air and she was left with an unsettling feeling in her belly as her argument and voice became weak. "Why won't you just listen to me? I know that facility inside out and you still won't take with you. You're letting your emotions cloud your judgement! Just because you can't stand me doesn't mean you should put yourself into a bad position." When that line of thinking did seem to make him budge she moved on to her next point, "It's completely illogical to kill someone over a misunderstanding!"

Finally Alucard turned to face the smaller blonde. And she now realized her massive miscalculation. The hateful mirth in his expression made her swallow reflexively. Was he really so excited to kill random people? Without hearing there side of things no less? What if they had a reasonable explanation for their attacks? What if Jace and Hausmeister were there? Her chest constricted at the thought. 

"A misunderstanding? Is that what you think this is?" His cool, coppery breath made her lungs hitch slightly. Alucard was in one Hell of a mood. "I'm not in the habit of listening to cultists, little girl."

Something in her seemed to go solid. Her face, her heart, her soul. Everything was suddenly much stronger than a moment ago. "And I'm not in the business of watching my friends kill innocent, deluded people."

Alucard's lips lifted into a tight snarl. "Innocent and deluded would describe you perfectly, wouldn't it? Deluded that your lover is human. Deluded about the evils of the world. Deluded by the cruelty of your fellow man. The only evil you've faced in your life is standing before you and even now you look for some logical explanation. What if I enjoyed watching your organs explode from your soft little body? What if I simply enjoy the torture and death that surrounds me?"

Her solid expression didn't soften, but her sweet blue eyes did. Their kindness nearly undid him. Always so fucking forgiving when he was ready to bite. But she couldn't calm him now, not when he needed that anger to guide him. He slid away from her, hoping the distance would keep him from wanting to touch her. 

It didn't.

"Alucard." She spoke his name so gently, as if to a wild horse under her hands, somehow holding such faith that he wouldn't hurt her. "I don't think you are as evil as you believe yourself to be." It took a lot of guts to reach out to him right then, to touch the spot where his cravat's edges fell to the center of his chest and grip those red strands, hoping beyond hope that he wouldn't pull away. "In fact, I think you care a lot more than you'd ever let on to anyone." Those soft blue eyes were suddenly sharp with acuity as they cut into his like a hunting dirk. He watched her expression grow more severe as some thought suddenly made sense. "You think..." She blinked, voice softening. "You think you're protecting me from what I would find in Ireland. You know I'm more gentle than you, and you're worried about what that level of violence would do to a person like me. But if this is the world I live in, then let me be a part of this. Let me do my job and purify those broken souls." Her lips lifted to a sardonic smile. "Plus, since I'm definitely not a reincarnation of Mary. Maybe someone over there can explain this Scythe business better than you can."

Yes, there was someone there who could explain it all to her and that was the precise reason she could never find herself in Belfast again. She already knew too much.

He slid away without looking back. Her lost, worried expression might have changed his mind about leaving for Ireland over two months early without her.

He'd specifically changed the date so she wouldn't feel compelled to join them to visit her old lover. As much as he would have enjoyed seeing her devastation as he tore that bastard limb from gushing limb he would have also hated it. The truth was he couldn't risk allowing her anywhere near that vile excuse for a holy man again. The fact that she spent so much time with him already made him react violently to any mention of his name, it reminded him tim and time again of how horribly he failed at protecting her and the many souls resting within her body.

He couldn't reel in the aggression she pulled from him at times and her bright mind was beginning to understand why.

"If you're not the true user the we have no use for you anyway." He waved once high above his head as he walked away. "Enjoy your vacation, Slayer."

...

While Alucard and Seres were away Integra reintroduced Angelica to her Scythe on a more permanent level. Daily practice with a weapons expert to hone her strength was now her rent for living so lavishly with them. It was the only thing that kept her whirling mind at bay.

The vampires were only away for a few days, but that was long enough to make the whole situation come crashing down.

Aside from the icy kindness of Integra, Angelica hadn't been around a truly caring person since she was in Prague with her friends. All of the affection she'd received over the past two years was dished out by people who wanted something from her.

Angelica felt abandoned and lost.

The only people who could understand her strange sense of eternity were gone. Admittedly it was bizarre. Her confidants were two deadly comic book monsters. They were two of the four creatures on earth who knew what she had gone through in captivity.

The other two were Hausmeister and Integra, but they were not the ones she desperately wanted to contact. Integra helped her get in contact with Verizon to have her cell service turned back on so she could let her friends know she was alright. But now that she regained phone functionality she could technically get in contact with Jace and Lydia whenever she wanted. When the little device blinked to life again she received a barrage of notification from people she'd met over the years worried for her safety. Lydia's name was constantly flashing onto her screen, but she hadn't been able to think of anything to say to her. She couldn't just say: _Hi! I was kidnapped but now it's cool I'm living with vampires in a huge mansion. Oh, and I was chosen by God to purify damaged souls. Nbd. Ps I swear I'm not on drugs loljkjk xD!_

But not a damn word from Jace. The person who claimed to love her above all else was conspicuously missing from the lineup. Not a single missed call. Not a single text, email, voicemail; nothing.

It hurt, badly.

Was she really so insignificant to everyone she cared for? Did she ever mean anything to him at all? Was it because she was a prude? Did that turn him from her?

No.

He was wrong. He abandoned her. He let all of these horrible things happen by standing idly by as Hausmeister injected her with those drugs. He was culpable for her kidnapping and the abuse she endured. If he cared for even a moment he could have reached out to her, but there was no proof of that.

He had deleted all of his social media and his phone number was turned off when she finally tried to call one desperately lonely night in the bitter cold of early November. 

Why was it so hard to accept that he never really cared?

Alucard had alluded to a reality she couldn't quite grasp during their small disagreement. Was she really deluded for believing Jace was a normal guy? What if he was an accomplice? What if he knew what she was all this time? Maybe he had wanted to do this to her from the very start, and she had been too blinded by love to see through his facade?

No, that had to be wrong too. She felt it in his kiss, in his touch. He did love her. He just had to. If he didn't, it would be the last bit of sanity she had left. And boy was she holding on by a bare thread these days.

She missed him so damn much, but that feeling was deafened by the sense of panic that gripped her heart when Alucard walked away, leaving her alone in that cold hallway. He was hiding something from her. She just knew it. 

Without him she felt vulnerable. Something told her that she had nothing to fear so long as that vampire was nearby and ever since he left Angelica found herself counting the minutes and hours before his return.

Integra demanded that she quit being so pathetic and find something to occupy herself before she gave her some menial job around the manor. Integra hated slothish behavior.

On Monday, Angelica wandered the mansion aimlessly hoping to avoid Integra's judgmental eyes. Luckily she gained the ability to carry her Scythe wherever she went. Now and then she would put it back in its place in the treasury to focus her mind elsewhere, but those times were few and far between. The only thing that hampered her progression into the downward spiral that was her mental wellbeing was using her Scythe. It had an easy, calming energy that washed away all of her erratic confusion.

Tuesday was the day she decided to delve back into her college dream, but even her research foundered under the weight of panicked neurosis. Rain drops squirmed down the window, distracting her from the plastic chemical models in her hands. Lately she was waking up earlier and earlier. Her nightmares were vague and disturbing when she began recognizing her murderer in every dream. She felt disconnected and utterly helpless. That was why she felt the need to remind herself of her strengths.

She was a biologist damnit! A scientist! Angelica hid herself away in the library to study her growing curiosities.

It was a happy accident that she found a huge container of stick and ball models. Angelica whipped out a sharpie and got to work measuring certain angles and distances to learn more about the function of certain neurochemicals.

Norepinephrine was a large molecule, its carbon ring fit perfectly around her wrist when she spun it. One of its most prolific structures was the locus ceruleous, located in the pons. It was touted for creating feelings of stress and panic. Angelica was lost in thought as she spun the molecule around and round, staring out the window hoping to see a flash of red and black. When she realized what she was doing she flinched hard enough to fling the structure across the room. She grumbled and gathered the dozens of little pieces, cursing herself for being such a klutz.

At that moment she wanted so badly to dissect her own locus ceruleous to figure out why she wasn't more freaked out by her new surroundings. Instead she was panicking about the life she lead up until this point, not the fact that she was being attended by vampires and killing leprosy riddled ghouls. She was actively wishing for the return of a guy who shot her twice, nearly killing her. The guy who threw her every morning to wake her up and said such cruel things that it made her stomach turn. But no, yeah, totally a good idea to look for that particular psychopath. _Good one Angelica._

Great. And now she was arguing with herself.

One thing confused her in all of this, why was she taking all of this so well when Seres and Alucard were around, but flew off the deep end whenever they left for more than a few hours? Naturally there should have been at least a smidgen of residual fear since Alucard shot her in the damn chest. But no, of course she was completely crazy instead and found herself _attracted to him_. She laughed to herself as she wrote a compound into her notes. She felt lost without him around to remind her that life could always be worse. 

Her brain was so many levels of fucked from this whole experience, but her calm attitude was what scared her the most.

After deconstructing and reorganizing the molecular models and tucking away her highlighted notes in a desolate corner of the library she found herself wandering the corridors again.

This time it wasn't quite so aimless. The treasury was her new favorite haunt.

Angelica had a plastic smile on her face, she felt the weight of the white scythe in her hands and flipped it once before hugging it to her chest. It felt like falling in love. The pearly white wood grain was so smooth with the slight hard indentation of carved gold incantations written in some long dead language. It felt like getting a fix after years of sobriety.

It was a dangerous intoxication.

There was never any guilt when she got her hands on it again. She had no one, her parents were dead, her ex-fiancé was apparently evil. All she had were the memories of other women and her new vampiric family and now they were off on some wild adventure without her.

That simply would not do.

Her finger slid along the blade, a clean slice popped the skin of her fingertip open. It instantly sizzled shut, not even leaving a scar. Her eyes devoured the thing as she took in each and every centimeter of its clean body. There was only one thing that ever gave her rise for concern. At the very end of the spiked end of her Scythe the words appeared to simply end. It was abruptly cut off in the middle of a word where the letter in swirled away as the spike whittled to its end. Her fingers swept over the little letters and scratched the broken words, wishing she had the barest knowledge of ancient languages. Unfortunately she was inept in that area of her brain.

A long, deep breath stretched her lungs to their limit as her eyes followed the trace etchings on its wooden staff. Willing herself to understand even a word of the swirling handwriting.

Nope, still nothing.

"Drop it, Slayer."

A deep, sultry voice came from beside her right ear, the low vibrations tingled goosebumps down the surface of her neck.

Relief flooded her body, it felt like her blood had finally begun moving again, warming her in a comforting way that didn't make much sense. Maybe it was a fight or flight reaction.

Her hands gripped the handle more tightly, reminding herself that she was given permission to use it whenever she wanted. Evidently Alucard missed that memo.

"Integra wants me to keep it with me from now on for protection." She stretched the truth just a little. "I just put it away for a little while to read." It must have showed on her face how genuinely happy she was to hear his voice again because he didn't try to argue with her about it. Smiling, and a little combative, she asked, "So, how'd it all go over there?"

Angry silence told her it hadn't gone as well as planned, like she expected.

She wanted to know what happened so she could convince him to bring her next time. "I'm not going to sit here like a friggin' leech. If I can use this then I can help-"

The corners of his lifted grin fell just enough to catch her attention. "In the past year you've killed vampires and ghouls, not fellow humans."

Her resolution drooped hearing his voice flicker with emotion. He seemed lost, as if he was awaiting her next words on baited breath. It was a weird look for him. Those focused red eyes were so distracting that she almost didn't notice how close he stood, close enough for her to smell his ferrous breath.

Close enough to touch.

The way his eyes spelled over her hardened expression almost made her determination wilt, but she had to stay strong. She was a part of this too, she couldn't let other people fight her battles. His white gloved hand hovered over her shoulder, as if afraid to touch her. It gave a sickening feeling in her stomach when the motion brought to mind her old devout captor.

"This fight isn't yours, let me be your weapon for once Arte-" He stumbled lightly over the name before correcting himself with more force, "-Angelica. You cannot die, not over something as ridiculous as the IRA."

She felt her face contort into something akin to pain when she heard him correct himself.

 _Artemy_. She'd heard that name a dozen times, only now did it sting to see how much admiration he held for that long-gone soul. He had just lifted the curtain for long enough to shoot a barb into her heart. He cared more for someone who had been dead for centuries than the person standing before him now.

But another important piece of the puzzle sunk into place. A spot in her chest fluttered brightly.

He didn't want her to die.

Angelica's brows furrowed curiously as she glared up at him, taking a quick step back to keep herself from getting a Charlie horse in her neck. Why'd he have to be so damn tall when she wanted to glare at him?

"I can't just sit here like a bump on a log while you fight my battles for me. What if this Ireland trip is a lure to take you away from-" Crap. That sounded pathetic. That stupid smug face proved it. Mayday mayday! "I mean," Angelica looked around to make sure he couldn't see her blush, "if I was planning to steal a sacred item I'd make the cavalry chase a false lead and carry out my plans once there was an opening."

Blood red eyes flashed aggressively before falling carefully to resigned understanding. She was afraid of ending up alone. That was something the old vampire could surely sympathize with.

_He isn't after some sacred item, Slayer. If only it was so simple._

His large hand dropped hesitantly over the top of her head. She flinched, surprised by the affectionate gesture. The orange shield of his glasses hid some of the sore emotion in his eyes. "I won't let that happen." A smile curved the corner of his lips, slightly squinting his lower lids, freeing a couple of mirthful pointed teeth. "When did you become so violent? What happened to your tireless anti-war tirades?"

Angelica rolled her eyes and failingly attempted to push his hand away, muttering to herself when he ruffled her hair slightly. "Being around you makes me violent."

Alucard chuckled deep in his chest, thinking he'd just won. But he underestimated her stubbornness.

"I am going with you Alucard." Angelica spoke as if this was already decided. "I don't care if you think I'm too weak. I'm not a child who needs your permission."

Alucard's good humor fell hard. 

Usually this expression was closely accompanied by some scathing remark insulting her intelligence. But this time he didn't snap something mean at her. She didn't see any snide remarks hiding behind his eyes either. Just concern. What an odd emotion to see in this carefree vampire.

His hand slid from the top of her head. The backs of his gloved fingers smoothed down the side of her cheek to cup her jaw. Red eyes peeked over orange glasses, half mast and focused as he leaned deeply over her, his back arched in a possessive fort of way as he collected her close to him. She wasn't aware that there was a wall behind her until she tried to escape.

Angelica squeaked a small choking whimper at the base of her throat. If she so much as flinched, their noses would touch.

All breathing stopped.

She could feel cool breath over her lips, the sensation sent chills down her spine. They were too close. Her eyes were glued to his when they flickered to her lips then back again. There was a gravitational draw that pulled her toward him to close the small space between their lips. She didn't even try to resist.

She couldn't lie to herself, not with her flying pulse and thready breaths as the black haired vampire lightly smoothed his thumb over her high cheekbone. Air caught in her lungs. He bowed just enough to close the small electric place between their lips. She swayed into the soft touch, her lips parting slightly as her head tilted to press into a better angle. Her eyes closed, his large hands collected her waist to pull her deeper into him. 

The heavy, foreboding drop in her gut was almost immediate.

He expected her reluctance. He expected her nerves.

But he wasn't expecting her to _stab him in the gut and run away_.

Panting against the door she locked it with a rushed click, even though logically she knew Alucard could enter any room he wanted without invitation. Somewhere deep inside she knew he wouldn't come after her at the present moment.

"Jesus Christ." Angelica gasped the name of the Christian founder desperately - something she'd never done before. Leaning her weight on her knees, she collapsed at the foot of the door around her beloved Scythe, holding it tightly to feel its radiating energy.

Trembling fingers traced her lips. She didn't... No, not Alucard. He wouldn't want _her_... would he?

The heavy weight in her stomach hadn't lifted. Hadn't she been miserable the past few days when she remembered Jace? Hadn't she been trying to get back to Belfast just to see if he was there?

Was she crazy? How did that just happen?!

All men, even science fiction monsters, were impossible to comprehend. When this was all over she was going to dissect Alucard's brain to measure the density of his amygdala. If that thing wasn't riddled with overactive neurons and overly thickened ganglion she would be utterly floored. He had so little impulse control it was laughable.

That's all it was. A tiny little mistake. She hadn't done anything to provoke him. All she did was tell him she was going to help fight the IRA. Maybe violence was a weird turn on for vampires? It made a little sense, but the explanation fell short.

Angelica's heart was racing out of her chest, it wouldn't slow down. It was almost like she was...

No. Absolutely not.

It's not like she wanted him to kiss her. Insanity hadn't completely crippled her logic. Not yet.

It was especially unhelpful when she came out of hiding later for dinner only to learn Seres and Alucard had gone away again. Integra was less than forthcoming, going so far as to say they had never come back at all.

Too bad it was a total lie. She could still taste the blood on Alucard's lips and how easily she slid into the soft, tide-like pull of his mouth against hers.

That foreboding feeling was back in her belly, squirming and reminding her that she had made a promise to someone else. But there was a problem, a really, _really_ big one.

Every memory of Jace's mouth was suddenly overwritten by another's, paired with those sinful red eyes that made her legs turn to jelly.

This was not good.

Books helped to distract her from the firm resistance of his lips on hers most of the time, but her favorite distraction was usually the bizarre enigma of Alucard. So now her own curious brain was working against her. If she couldn't get him out her her head she might as well delve into her study of the ancient vampire's behavior.

Over the past many months, her obsession had been with Alucard and his reaction to certain questions. She had meticulously noted his responses to each and every question she had ever asked about her past lives. It was like getting blood from a stone trying to get answers from him and she could tell it really annoyed him. But she knew all of his little "nothing"s and scoffs just meant he couldn't talk about it without becoming emotional. Using deductive reasoning it was pretty easy to figure out that he had loved one of her past lives: Artemy. This theory was sufficiently solidified when he misspoke her name, it wasn't the first time either.

The thought rang hollow in her chest. Her fingers touched her lips, remembering the magnetic kiss far too well. If she thought about it long enough it began to feel very familiar, as if it had happened thousands of times before.

It was easy to tell what had changed. The moment he found out that she could recall certain events of her past lives he started being much nicer to her. He knew how to get information out of her, and it worked.

He was using her, he was an evil vampire. Manipulation was his nature.

Yup. Nothing else could explain what happened between them. He had to be manipulating her.

She wrote it at the top of a page in her notebook as her current running hypothesis.

Something had to explain his disjointed feelings and she was going to find out come Hell or high water.

Angelica pushed the thought from her mind and created a timeline on a large sheet of paper. It hung beside her bed so she could write new information as she learned it from each nightmare. She was slowly getting a picture of which Scythe user lived at each interval. Of course there were still a lot of missing pieces. But it was a start.

She knew for certain that Artemy had come before Mina, and Angelica was the most recent. Alucard had been in love with Artemy and Mina was a vampire he created. She chewed on the end of her pen and scowled at the pages trying to piece together everything she could pick out of her ancient memories. The blue ink swiped suddenly across the page as her eyes accidentally closed, she jerked awake but almost instantly felt herself giving in to sleep.

...

_Large hands slid over the curvature of her hips, drawing her head down to meet his lips. When they parted she could taste sweet iron on his tongue, but above that was the enticing flavor of him. A flavor she'd known for as long as she could remember. Long blonde hair cascaded over one shoulder as she leaned into the desperate kiss. He tore her clothes away, equally desperate to touch her as she was to feel him again. It was then that she realized she didn't know what she was doing or who he was or why they were about to do this._

_Her hands pressed against his chest, her heart failing when the small distance between their lips felt like too much. If she could burrow into his skin she would stay there forever._

_No, she had to make sense of all this._

_Jace. He had to be Jace! Her eyes flung open but the shock made her fall onto the ground, ass first._

_The red eyed demon eyed her cautiously. Humor lit his features in a way she'd never seen before. He leaned over her, his shadow sending chills over her flesh._

_"Come here, Mina."_

Air forced its way down her throat, her lungs clamoring desperately for oxygen in the wake of a raw scream.

This time she wasn't shocked, but intimately flustered when she woke to see familiarly grinning dimples and razor blade teeth hovering above. Her heart was pounding, it shook her whole body slightly with each hard beat.

"Get away from me!"

The grin on his face shrunk just a little before widening again. Alucard didn't come any closer, but he did adjust his position so his knee dipped into the bed beside her hips. Angelica gripped her blanket tightly, ready for his typical wake up call. Flipping her to the ground.

Only, this time, he just watched her face, eyes flicking here and there to different places. Her ear, her hairline, her bare shoulder, her lips with the slightest quirk of a smile. It felt like he somehow knew she was just thinking about their little mistake.

"I mean it Alucard." Her pupils contacted, jaw tight. His power over her was done. Or so she told herself. "You need to leave."

When he didn't make a move to depart, Angelica curled her legs under her to scooch a little further away, against the magnetic field that seemed to pull her toward him. It was like he had his own gravitational pull and she was a wayward comet. He was still so close, it made her breathing hitch as she recalled his lips on hers and how pleasant it was. How _whole_ she felt.

But one word, one name, repeated in her head until she managed to regain control over her mind and body enough to swallow and tighten the blankets over her shoulders, resting her head back against the headboard with a nervous swallow.

_Jace, Jace, Jace. You love him, you have since you were 19. You promised to marry him. Remember his face, forget this guy._

But she could barely remember what he looked like anymore, it had been so long. 

"You're beginning to irritate me, Vampire." If he wouldn't call her by her name, she'd do the same. "I'm engaged to someone, you need to stay away from me."

If only she knew how right she really was. "There are two virgins in the Hellsing Estate. Unfortunately for you, that means my attention is drawn by the most easily persuaded." His already wide lips curved at the edges. "Namely, you."

Angelica's face lit up red as she tried to cover all of her exposed skin with the white sheets to give merit to her claim. "I-I am not easily persuaded into anything!"

"Is that so?" He grinned in his sultry way that always forced her to look anywhere but his eyes.

"Why am _I_ the virgin you go after?! Can't your go bother Seres or something?!" The little blonde covered her face with her hands to cover her stupid blush.

So embarrassing.

Alucard's face definitely changed a shade. Maybe he was sickened by the idea of touching Seres. The real reason came as a slightly insulting, but hilarious, shock as she read his face and realized he was under the impression she was loose, or at least that she was not a virgin.

"No wonder you're always so pissed!" The teasing grin on her face couldn't stop the bubbles of laughter that suddenly erupted. Now she really needed to cover her face just to keep him from seeing the tears of laughter in her eyes. "Of course you'd be trapped in a mansion with three women you can't touch! That's pure poetry! If there's one guy who needs to get laid, its you!"

Alucard slid his gloved fingertip touched to the very tip of her big toe where it popped up under the blanket. Angelica's peals of laughter stopped immediately as she peeped an eye between her fingers, looking at the small point of contact nervously as he slid said hand from the top of her foot to the inside of her knee, dragging his nails over a certain spot an inch higher that made her breathing halt. Blue eyes stared at his, pleadingly, but he pretended not to notice, leaning over her, allowing his shadow to cover her entirely.

Chills tingled up her spine, raising the hairs on her arms. Her throat tensed when she swallowed, thinking she was about to give up to something she had never considered giving to someone she'd only met a few months ago. She was strangely open to the idea.

The back of his fingertips rested gently against her cheek, the pad of his thumb tracing the corner of her upper lip. Her heart sputtered when his nose touched hers. If he so much as _breathed_  their lips would meet again. Her heart sang.

He hummed a chuckle deep in his throat. How he'd ever thought she was anything but the Scythe's true master was beyond him. It was so obvious now that he had her under his hands. The way she reacted to his touch reminded him so much of someone else, or, a _few_ someones.

Her mind was completely numb. Her heart was thumping against her ribs, desperate to escape his temptation. She was trying her absolute best not to look at his face, but everywhere she looked she found herself drawn back to his soft ministration of her lower lip. She wanted him to take off those gloves. She wanted to know what his skin felt like.

Then he chucked, pulling away. With a knowing grin he said what both of them were thinking, "do you think you could escape if I decided to have you?"

She didn't need to answer, the truth was apparent in her flushed cheeks and dazed, heady expression. He didn't need to go any further to prove his point, though he was hard pressed not to. He liked to keep his options open in the unlikely scenario that he needed to change her. 

Her pupils dilated, feebly hiding her flushed exasperation with an eye roll. "Alucard, be serious for two seconds." The exaggeratedly astute look on his face almost broke her emotionless mask. All he got from her was the smallest smile she could manage without laughing. "I've been a little... worried, about Jace I mean." His eyes narrowed over his glasses and she rushed to finish before he could say anything. "Do you know what happened to him after I was kidnapped? He was there in the room when Hausmaister injected me with that narcotic, he has to know more about this whole situation than I do. He'd be a good point of contact if we found-"

"Angelica," he interrupted so gently that she didn't even scold him. The way he spoke her name felt important. His normally violent face was almost soft the way his eyes bore into hers, focusing her attention in a way that felt supernatural. "You will never see him again, you need to accept that fact."

There was a heavy pit in her heart at the thought. Maybe he thought she was being a love sick little girl. She felt compelled to explain her reasoning without bringing her affection into the argument when she had been on the verge of accepting anything the vampire might be willing to give only a moment ago. "He saw what happened, it is worth the time to find him even just to question his motive."

"I already did."

His furious glee was back in place. It was that bloodthirsty look she remembered when he held Jackal against her cheek. Angelica felt her blood suddenly turn to ice. The color bled from her face as her blue eyes widened.

"Alucard." She whimpered his name like a silent prayer. "What did you do?"

It wasn't a question.

His eyes didn't move from hers, the only indication that he had even heard her pleading question was the pull of some small muscle in his mouth.

"I filled him with bullet holes and told the Policegirl to burn his body."

The vampire must not have had much experience with panic attacks. Angelica's world shifted just a little, throwing her off balance as she struggled to breathe. Her trembling hands covered her face as she curled up right there. Her small muscles began shuddering uncontrollably as this information sunk in fully.

She was _not_ going to cry! _NO_! She swore to herself she wouldn't cry anymore! Her breaths became more and more shallow, shorter, shorter. Her face was tingling as her blood rushed away from her extremities as her autonomic systems began trying to save her from a mortal danger that didn't necessarily exist.

Two heavy hands smoothed over her shoulders and pushed her out of her ball, forcing her to breathe more deeply. "That creature doesn't deserve your mourning."

The way he said it clued her in on a few things. First of all, he had gotten some information from Jace, information that she probably didn't want to hear. The second was that this terrifying demon actually gave a shit about her.

"W-what did," she had to stop and breathe to get her tight voice back in order before she could make a fool of herself, "what did he tell you?" Angelica was proud of herself for managing to sound completely calm, especially with the resulting frustration in the man holding her upper arms.

"Nothing that concerns you."

She missed the weight of his hands the moment they left her body. She just craved comfort after such horrible news, even if it was Jace's murderer doing the consoling.

A venomous feeling crept from her veins in the wake of her panic induced adrenaline. Her skin prickled with fury.

"Everything involving him is a concern to me, and either I hear it from you or Integra will tell me." She knew a weakness of his, Integra was the easiest option. "I'd rather get this information first hand, and I will trust whatever you tell me as the truth." But she was feeling even more dangerous than usual. "I don't care if I have to go back there myself. I _will_ know the truth. You can fuck right off with this vague attitude of yours. I'm done being left in the dark about my own past, present, and future."

The room's shadows complimented Alucard's darkened expression nicely as moments of seething silence passed by. Just as Angelica was about to say something snappish he began, "He has been farming you since birth for the moment when you were taken. He had planned your every move, from turning you slowly against your parents to convincing you to agree on a trip overseas, to agreeing to marry him." That murderous look in his eye had returned just in time to take it out on her. "And you fell for it like the soft minded fool you are. For one so obsessed with data and hypotheses you are completely clueless when it comes to plain observations."

The muscles in Angelica's face fell slack. She had heard enough bullshit to last a lifetime. No, Jace wasn't a monster, not like the vampire in front of her. He made her feel the things she felt toward him only to rip any newfound happiness away. 

Her voice was low, murderous, "Alucard, you just told me, in so few words, that you killed the man I've loved since I was nineteen. The man I planned to spend my life with, have kids with, and the person I'd discover anatomical structure responsible for spontaneous creativity with. In every sense you've just singlehandedly ruined my life. Now you're trying to tell me I'm _a bad scientist_ for missing the impossible-to-detect notion that Jace might have wanted to hurt me?" Her voice took on a bitter taste as she recalled the recent times he mistook her for someone he _really_ cared for. "I think you're lying to me. I think you want to exact some sick revenge on Artemy for refusing to love you back."

In a normal person, the small action would have been confused with a muscle twitch. But Angelica saw his eyes wince slightly and she knew she was right. "I knew it! She _is_ the reason you hate me! Well, _good_ , now I understand. I understand that you wanted to hurt me the way she hurt you. Now I will never see the person I love again. Great work."

He looked like he could have killed her in that moment, but somehow managed not to drive his fingers into her chest and rip out her still beating heart.

"Artemy has everything to do with the reason your pet paladin had to die." He stood, speaking only loud enough that she could hear. "He's the reason you aren't her."

He then slid through the wall, and Angelica was left to scream at the wallpaper behind him.


	9. Nodus Tollens

_Nodus Tollens (n.):_

_The realization that the plot of your life no longer makes sense to you._

_In Latin, "denying the consequent"._

* * *

The following morning Integra informed Angelica that her vampiric comrades would be gone for just over a month, but their original date was still set in the highly unlikely scenario that they failed their mission.

Angelica didn't respond, she had to keep her mouth shut to keep her throat from tightening with emotion. She spent the whole night going over her fight with Alucard and after hours of tossing and punching her pillow, she found the perfect retort.

And that damned bastard wasn't even there to hear it. So many wasted hours better spent sleeping. There was an extra twist of hate in her gut.

After an incredibly full day of feeling sorry for herself, Angelica returned to her extravagant room. She turned on the light and her mouth fell open. All of her favorite neurophysiology and anatomy books were set up at a black L-shaped lab table in front of the great window. The setup divided the back wall in half. Someone had even pushed her bed to the side to make more space for the larger metal-armed equipment.

She was instantly suspicious. Integra didn't like her this much, did she?

At first she was too distracted by her newfound hatred toward a particular vampire to think of anything but punching his stupid face. But after the first day of trying not to acknowledge the beautiful new lab, she crumbled under its allure. She threw herself into her study of ghoul physiology to make new hypotheses and even newer methods to test them. If there was a single other person conducting this research in the entire world she would have been shocked. If she wrote a paper she would leap into scientific fame. With fame came finances, with finances she could leave this place and never come back.

With this tantalizing thought on the forefront of her mind she dove head first into her research. It wasn't as viscerally exciting as the brain, but general microbiology and cell biology were still intriguing.

She found a few things in the samples living in the stainless steel freezer. It was pushed under the table along with block of thin metal drawers stocked with slides. Every slide contained human tissue.

A separate section contained a hunk of squirming ghoul flesh attempting to escape. It was under lock and key with a pair of chainmail shoulder length gloves.

As she looked through the trove of tissues she found a special present of preserved brain slides. Her heart leaped, Integra had gone through great pains to acquire such beautiful specimens.

A moment later they were meticulously organized on top of the table by structure so she could look at them under the high-powered microscope standing on its own platform to her left. Using this gorgeous machine she could print photos of anything she saw under the microscope. By the end of the first day there were huge poster sized photographs hanging all over the walls for further inspection. She had one huge picture blown up in her hands that she looked over with one eye in a scope like a mad scientist.

_These glial cells are so big and white..._

She was in her happy place. No thoughts except those that abided her research were allowed here. The only interruptions were for food and the minor company of Integra. At times Angelica felt like a plant in the heiress's care. Integra was the gardener who made sure her little experiment was well watered, fed, and facing the sun for a little vitamin D.

During those few wonderfully lonely weeks the Integra required that Angelica undergo military style training. The slightly teasing lilt to her voice made Angelica realize Integra specifically desired for her to become an efficient fighter only to annoy Alucard. This type of underhanded aggression had her full and unequivocal support.

"By the way, I never thanked you for my lab equipment!" Angelica chirped as she followed Integra's long strides at a slow jog. "All of my college glass was from the early 90's so it's really nice to use such modern tech."

Integra's thin blonde brow lifted a millimeter, just enough to make Angelica drop her enthusiasm like a broken bag of groceries. As if it was such a nonissue she couldn't be bothered she said, "I didn't know you were interested in the sciences."

Angelica caught the door when Integra pulled it open, confused. "Then," Angelica stopped only long enough to question everything, she repeated, "then why did you get all that nice stuff for me?"

Again, Integra seemed more annoyed than anything as the large ceiling lights flicked on with loud hollow bangs. "Angelica, have you considered that I have more important things to do with my time than buy you presents?"

Her face flashed hot, embarrassed beyond embarrassment and then some. "Then— not to be rude or anything— do you know how it got there? I'm sure you have some idea since, you know, it's your house and all. But all of that equipment is high-end research quality, it wouldn't have been easy to procure and the only person I know with the ability to get her hands on that level of tech would be you."

There was finally a small quirk of humor in her expression, the very corners of her thin, drawn lips lifted. "Why don't you ask Alucard? He's told me on many exhausting occasions that you're wasting time denying your inquisitive nature." Then her attention shifted, quickly becoming dangerously severe. "Now pay attention, I will not have an untrained Slayer living under my roof. I expect you to come down here every day until you've learned to better control your abilities. Until that time you are not leaving this estate."

Integra smiled in her small, cold way, seeing Angelica fall into a frenzied intensity the moment her eyes landed on the two tall, buff trainers approaching from across the vast gymnasium.

...

Clive and Liam were tough nuts to crack, but Angelica finally got a smile out of Liam when she got him after she brought him a sandwich from the kitchens after a particularly trying fight.

The two of them probably forgot what sleep felt like without with her nightmarish screams in the background. They were hired for weapons training and they were her 'companions', a.k.a. Bodyguards.

Every day she was expected to work herself to the bone. And it was working.

Her vampire housemates were gone for another few days. That meant she had plenty of time to get stronger before they returned. 

Snow blanketed the estate. There were new winter storms and snowfall nearly every night in December as they approached Christmas. It was strange, Christmas had once held such significance to Angelica being that her god-obsessed parents would host midnight mass every year of her entire childhood. Of course this meant Angelica was required her to join or else face yet another hedonist label.

Her last Christmas with her parents had been several years ago. They stopped inviting her when she argued with a Baptist about why the crucifix was used as the Christian symbol since, you know, it symbolized the brutal murder of their founder. Jesus might not have been so jazzed about the idolization of his bloody, beaten, defamed body hanging from nails driven through his limbs. But that was apparently too much of an opinion for her parents.

Women should be _seen_ , not _heard_ , after all. Making babies, reading the bible, and cooking dinner was apparently all she should be good for. Any original thought was deeply forbidden, and completely unheard of, in their drone-like circle.

But with the general dressings and festive decorations scattered about the mansion Angelica found herself surprised. It hadn't even occurred to her that Christmas was in December; the most important day had become the 23rd, when she planned to go after Hausmaster and everyone else involved with the IRA's Guardian cult.

She was going on this trip. Everyone else could go screw.

Integra said she could leave whenever she liked. She wasn't a prisoner. She would walk there if necessary. But she really hoped it wouldn't come to that.

To avoid walking through knee-deep snow for several thousand miles, Angelica worked her book-loving ass off. She worked out more than she had in her entire life. And the exercise didn't get easier; she knew she was getting stronger.

When she got back to her room at night she had plenty to occupy her mind until sleep took her against her will, leaving her face smudged with black and blue ink from her tireless notes. At first it was a bit unnerving to think Alucard might have set up this lab after their furious argument. The fact that he put so much time and consideration into the types of samples she might be interested in studying and the exact instrumentation she required to examine it all made her automatically stop hating him as deeply as she had since he left. As she stabbed a piece of ghouls flesh she smiled. Alucard had a lot more admiration for her area of study than he’d ever say out loud, that was very clear. The fact that he put so much thought into the setup spoke to how, like Integra suggest d, he expected her to give in to her curious nature.

He knew her inner workings much better than she ever gave him credit for.

But then she remembered with a burning in her chest that he was an arrogant, hate filled jackass who kissed her then killed her ex just to spite her irrational and inexplicable affection toward him.

He killed Jace. This fact was horrible, but she had to remind herself again and again how horrible it really was. She wasn't crying her eyes out at night missing him with all of her heart. Once the original shock wore off she wasn't even saddened by his death. He was a bastard who aided in her kidnapping and torture. It made her think back to all the good times they had together with a sense of horror. Not a single word was genuine. Not a moment of affection was real. She had been living a lie and hadn't once suspected his betrayal.

Just as Alucard said, this lack of observational acuity was her greatest pitfall. It was devastating to think of herself in such a demeaning light. Of the many horrible insults the vampire had conjured over the past year, this was the worst by far. It made her question the intelligence she was gifted with at birth; it made her question every motivation in her life.

Instead of feeling sorry for herself she dove into those tissue samples with terrifying intensity.

But even when her eye was pressed to the fancy new microscope her mind sometimes wandered to the twisting pit in her belly.

Alucard blamed _her_ for Artemy's death. Several _hundred_ years later he was still looking for excuses for something he wouldn’t even talk to her about. It was unbelievably unfair.

Pushing that painful memory from her mind she tried to scrape the scythe's wood for a testable sample. She wanted to determine what was causing this purification. She had bits of human tissue that had been procured for her, though now that she knew Alucard was to thank for her well-stocked freezer she tried her damnedest not to acknowledge where it all came from.

The problem obviously wasn't finding useful human tissue samples; she had enough to last years. The problem was whittling a tiny fissure loose from the Scythe. No matter how hard she scrubbed the wood or scraped the metal she couldn't get a sample. It was a pretty major setback but she had plenty of hypotheses that didn't require individual samples of the weapon. Just touching it to the tiny flecks of meat would do for now.

Whenever she got frustrated with her lack of progress she would march with Clive and Liam to the gym and they'd show her how to properly throw a punch without looking like St. Vitas. They'd also set a small horde of ghouls on her.

Over time she learned the proper way to lean into her swings so the curved blade would glide through their flesh until bodies fizzled and steamed around her with little effort.

Clive rubbed his new black eye on the ground where she had thrown him, her Scythe barely touching the brown fuzzy hair at the back of Liam's head after fighting off twelve ghouls. A proud grin showed all of her teeth, brows elevated with excitement. "Guess you guys are out of a job!"

Clive laughed and held out a hand so she could help him stand. "I'm gonna need someone to protect me from you!" All three laughed and joked as they discussed ways to perfect her aim and better ways to block with the Scythe.

They were easy to talk to, they were normal humans with normal human lives outside of those walls. Clive had a little daughter around four years old with another on the way. He once complimented her by saying he hoped she would grow up to be half as spirited as she was. The poor thing.

Angelica had never been athletic; she never had the drive to compete. She still didn't. She only knew that if she became physically stronger she would be able to help more people by eradicating evil from the world. She could use her supposedly magical Scythe to save people tormented by ghouls and other monsters of darkness. All the while she could continue following her life dream of studying the brain and its mysterious workings.

Their laughter died away as an unsettling cold curtained the room. It fell over their shoulders heavily. Angelica shivered lightly. Their voices died away, realizing they had company. The two men put their hands on their weapons and Angelica felt her grip tighten on her Scythe.

Footfalls, two sets, were making their way into the gymnasium.

A smile found her lips when they came into view despite her bitterness toward their departure.

"Angelica!" Seres' back straightened at the sight of her, looking a bit more surprised and concerned than excited. Her red eyes bounced over her shoulder to the looming darkness walking beside her then back to the Scythe wielding young woman again, a new contrite motion pulled at her mouth.

Behind her was a tall dark shadow wearing violent red clothing. His fedora covered his eyes but it couldn't hide the scowl tugging the corners of his lips far down, all of his many sharp teeth showing.

All of the excited hope Angelica felt a moment ago fell through the floor. Apparently they were not back on good terms yet. Time wouldn't heal this fight, not after what they'd said to one another.

Angelica scowled past Seres to her Master's downturned mouth. She had been so excited to see them again and they obviously didn't feel the same way. Clive and Liam had, in the interest of survival, slunk their way toward the door opposite the furious vampire entering.

Alucard didn't even look at her as he passed. Even Seres, who didn't have the most solid relationship with Angelica, gave her a pitiful look, almost apologizing for her Master's bad mood. A faint darkness in her eyes told the young Slayer that Seres felt his anger was justified.

Angelica wasn't going to let him take away her hard earned pride. She held her head high and reattached her Scythe to the automated metal holster on her back with a loud click. Then, without a word she went back to take her anger out on a few microscopic differences between ghoul and human flesh.

That night she worked on her research without a wink of sleep. Her chest was filled with swirling, uncomfortable energy. If she didn't focus on her precise methods, she'd probably stalk into the basement and confront Alucard. But she didn't want that. Instead she had her white bladed Scythe splayed out for various tests. She had small equally portioned pieces of human flesh dotted over the blade with ghoul flesh sizzling next to them. A small frown set into her lips as she watched, nothing was coming to her. Why was this happening?

"Your fiancé is a piece of work."

She feigned her flinch into a motion so it wasn't as obvious, pretending his unexpected appearance behind her hadn't made her nearly (completely unironically) drop her dropper. The way Alucard said it almost felt like Jace was still alive.

But that wasn't possible. Gunshot wounds and death pyres could kill, well, _anything_.

"Oh? And here I under the distinct impression that he was dead." She tried to sound as aloof as possible, which obviously made her appear far more suspicious.

There was level silence as she mixed a buffer solution to check for alkylation in the affected ghoul flesh after it had sizzled back into normal human tissue.

”Have you considered that the cause of your scythe’s power is not physical, but spiritual?” He muttered as a rhetorical aside, not expecting her to grit her teeth the way she did when he did not clarify the point. But he seemed to enjoy her frustration with both impossible suggestions anyway,

"You couldn't even identify that your long time lover is a paladin." Each word was said in a way that made her feel stupider with each passing syllable. "No, he's not dead. That witch doctor had already reconvened with his little cult by the time we arrived." His hands were suddenly pressed into the table beside hers, framing her shoulders against his chest as she mixed the blue solution a little more vigorously than necessary. The very ends of his hair tickled the nape of her neck, his coat cool against her back. He definitely saw when she swallowed thickly.

The glass jingled a little as she stirred as calmly as possible, but she couldn't stop the light tremor of her hands when he was this close. The fine hairs on the shell of her ear fluttered under his breath as he spoke, "you were raised specifically for their cause. That vile thing was planted into your life to keep you from doing anything," she felt him grin in the thin air between his lips and her skin, " _impure_."

So Jace was on the enemy's side, that was for sure, but a paladin? She would need to be thoroughly convinced to believe a line of crap like that. She wasn't hurt or surprised by this news at all. That's what she convinced herself as her throat tightened with emotion.

"I have to correct you on one thing." She sighed a soft, sad laugh. "There was _nothing_ pure about Jace and he didn't exactly support my opinions on chastity until marriage. It was what we fought about most during our years together."

The tip of his nose moved the hair beside her temple, nuzzling the very edge of her neck, humming a soft laugh when her pulse spiked. "You didn't recognize him." He chuckled darkly to himself. "Your mind is too narrow to see things you don't believe possible. Is that why you are so determined to find him in Belfast? Because he fooled your logical little mind? Revenge doesn't suit you, Slayer."

It was hard to concentrate with his lips whispering against her neck like that. She was trying not to appear as nervous as she felt. He was obnoxious, he was bawdy, he was hateful toward her. She had no reason to relent to his seductive nature. So she focused on ignoring him and kept her hands steady as she poured the blue solution into small test tubes in even quantities.

"You should have told me all of this before going after him." Angelica snapped. "There are so many things I needed to say to him, things I needed to hear him say from his own mouth, and you stole that from me." She turned her face a little, hoping her angry tone would make him back away, but it seemed to have the opposite effect as his lips rested against the back of her ear. Her voice caught as she tried her best to sound tough when her heart fluttered. "I'm going on that trip to Belfast whether you like it or not."

He took the glass from her hand, holding her fingertips for far too long before taunting, "To purify your lost lover?" His voice was barely a whisper. "Nothing can purify that level of evil."

Her breathing fell shallow, unwilling to let him feel her anxious heartbeat through her back. He couldn't know the strange way he affected her. "Yeah. Nothing except your bullets and a pyre." She didn't bother hiding her contempt. It was all too obvious.

A sigh of cold breath chilled the side of her face. "If such simple measures could permanently end something like him then you'd have never met him."

Thankfully he couldn't see how her face paled at that comment. Jace was... alive? After all that? _How_?

Wait. What did it mean that Alucard couldn't kill him? Holy shit. If someone as strong as Alucard couldn't do it, did that mean Jace was _immortal_? No. That was ridiculous. No one could be immortal. He was probably like her; he probably stumbled across some lucky rabbits paw to pull himself back together or something equally absurd. What a strange world she had entered. If she didn't wake from this bizarre pipe dream soon she might be forced to accept every bit of pseudoscience she had ever publicly shouted down. Her ego could only handle so much humiliation.

The slightly warm absence of that vampire against her back was astonishing, shocking, really.

It was pretty obvious she'd developed a little bit of a crush on the tall, handsome monster. He was intimidatingly attractive, but there were so many other factors that now came into play. The most important was his genuine, albeit a touch reluctant, concern for her wellbeing. Both mental and physical. He actually wanted to see her fulfilling her dreams in a way she had never expected.

It was easy to brush off his behavior as callous when he was far away, but when she really spent the time to look at his posture it was easy to see he was giving kindness his best effort. He didn't bother with things he didn't care for. He was a hedonist. He only did things he enjoyed. Following that logic, if he didn't like her he wouldn't spend his waking hours pestering her.

It wasn't the affectionate note of her heart that concerned her. The depth of her heartache freaked her out most. There was a frighteningly desperate need to be near him. She felt lost in a world of confusion when he was away for those few long weeks. Now that he's returned she was able to relax again.

How ironic.

But she was supposed to be in love with _Jace. Jace, Jace, Jace_. Even if he was her enemy now, she couldn't just pretend she hadn't been in love with the man for years. Wasn't love supposed to be a permanent kind of thing? People didn't fall _out_ of love did they? Not if it was real to begin with, _right_?

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to remember the feel of his lips on hers, or the sound of his voice. All she could feel was the race of her pulse and the smooth, cool touch of Alucard's smirk on her neck. All she could hear were his softly spoken taunts. His cruel remarks that left her singed for weeks.

His velvety voice made her flinch, dropping the glass stirring stick, shattering against the table. He couldn't get a full word out before laughing heartily. "Not only are you stupid, but you're clumsy as well."

A scowl dropped the corners of her mouth. One moment she was pining for him, the next she wanted to dissect him.

She swept the glass into her hand and tossed it into the pail under the table.

Against the shadowed far side of her room was a wide-eyed, dark haired man staring intently at her left hand.

Her brow twitched then looked down to see a nearly microscopic drop of blood from the glass on her left ring finger. She plucked out the small shard between two nails and rubbed the small red spot with her thumb until it stopped aching.

As it turns out, Alucard is very quick. He jerked her hand close to his face, breathing in deeply, nearly pulling her off her feet from her seated position. It was times like these she was reminded how small she was in comparison to him.

Angelica swallowed. There was so much she wanted to know about Artemy and why he blamed her for the woman's untimely death. But she decided to leave that painful wound alone for the time being. They needed a little more time to heal. "What does it feel like, to be drawn to blood the way you are?"

Alucard held the spot on her palm to his lips and Angelica couldn't help the thrill of fear that he might bite her. Oddly enough, this wasn't a frightening fear, but an anticipatory kind.

He smiled against her hand as if he'd read her mind; head tilting just enough to shadow his eyes. "Always too curious for your own good." His amusement quickly shifted to something black. "That trait will get you killed one day."

Somehow she knew he was going to wiggle their ongoing argument back into such a gentle moment the instant she decided to let it go. Just as Integra said all the time, he never held back his opinions. It was a something she was learning to really enjoy. And for the first time she didn't mean that sarcastically.

"Why don't you want me to come with you? You really think I'm so pathetic that I'll get you or Seres hurt? I've been working really hard, I'm pretty good with the Scythe now..."

The concern that shone in those bright eyes made her stomach tie itself into knots as she described her regimen over the past few weeks

He looked at her as if he'd known her forever, as if he had a much deeper knowledge of what drove her than she ever did.

"Your weakness is definitely pathetic," he started to say, "but that isn't why you need to stand down." His fingertips touched her jaw to tilt her face. "There are monsters in the world masquerading as human, like your paladin, who would do anything to harness the power you wield. Horrible things. You've already fallen into their traps once and I will not let you become another victim."

Angelica swallowed, now knowing there was so more to this than she ever thought.

"' _Another_ ' victim?" She questioned tentatively. Maybe she'd finally hear him say it. Maybe he would finally explain what happened to Artemy.

That deep, black sorrow returned to his expression, pulling his permanent smile into a wide frown. He wasn't going to say a word about Artemy without a fight.

"Alucard." His crimson eyes refocused, losing the painful memory he had been reliving to find Angelica waiting quietly, pulling her hand away from his lips to let their joined fingers hang in the space between them. He couldn't help marveling at the similarities between her kind, accepting expressions and Artemy's. "How did you meet me?"

Alucard feigned ignorance with a cocky grin; losing all traces of the mournful sorrow he'd been wearing a moment prior. "When your dumb ass tried to attack me in Belfast."

But she wasn't taking the bait.

"You know that's not what I mean." His bright grin didn't move but she saw the shadows swimming in his eyes, memories he was desperate to forget. "How did you really meet me, in the beginning. Who are Artemy, Mina, and... Elisa?" He let go of Angelica's hand as if the last name burned his flesh, easing away with rushed grace.

She took ahold of his cavat before he could escape, pulling it slightly loose in her hand until he became still as granite. She stood a little taller and really _looked_ at the struggling vampire. Her gaze softened on him as she tried her best to understand what this was doing to him. 

Lines appeared just under his eyes, aging him. He had always been there, throughout all those long, horrible nightmares of past lives. He was always there with her, guiding her and caring for her. It seemed counterintuitive for a vampire to protect a vampire slayer, but after recalling that last dream where he had Mina in his arms, she finally put the broken pieces together. Her eyes grew wide.

He loved her. Or some version of her. Perhaps even her soul was the thing he wanted. But she wasn't some kind of idiot who didn't pay attention, disregarding his opinion of her observational skills.

Every time he told her "nothing" at the mention of her past it drove her curiosity into overdrive. Now that she could see all of the pieces coming together she could see why he wanted to hate her so badly.

He knew he would lose her one day.

But, if he knew _why_ she was being torn away from him so violently, he _had_ to tell her so they could escape that fate this time. He wouldn't leave her in the dark about something so important. ... _Right_?

As she expected, once he saw her expression change with understanding he gave her a hard stare then silently disappeared into the late night shadows.

He didn't have to use words to convey his dark thoughts. She could feel it in the cold air around her as she put all of the memories into the correct order and finally knew exactly what was going to happen. Her cold, shaking fingers covered her parted lips as an icy cold line fell down her cheek. 

He was going to be the death of her.

 _Literally_.

...

That night she couldn't sleep. Angelica's mind raced to put everything together and those realizations were dotted with awful memories and premonitions.

Her heart nearly jumped from her chest when she suddenly figured it all out. Panting, she grabbed her Scythe and dialed something into her phone, ripping it from its charger.

"Lydia?" All she could hear was frightened and excited sobbing on the other end. "Yeah, I'm okay. Something bad happened and I need your help. Have you seen Jace?" Her mouth fell into a hard line. "Okay, don't tell him I called. It's important. I need you to do me the most massive favor of my life and I swear I will make it up to you one day." She paused, unsure if this was the right thing to do. Then, seeing the tissue samples on her lab table sizzling away she felt a wave of confidence. "I need you to get a ticket from London to Ireland in my name."

...

It was quiet for a brief moment before he had to know. "Was that her?" More deafening silence answered the question. The ancient being felt a cruel grin crawl across his lips as he saw brittle young woman attempting to come up with a believable lie. What a silly little child. Of course she couldn't possibly comprehend the level of danger she was currently facing. No normal human could.

Her lips parted to test her little tall tale, so he cut in smoothly, "I see. Now, Lydia, did she happen to mention where she's hiding?" His hand curled around the heavy carved bone cross hanging from his neck in anticipation. Tears filled the young girl's eyes, not fully comprehending his manic expression, still trying her hardest to protect her friend. No one could keep that girl away from him, not even God himself.

The cross pulsed under his gentle caress as he looked into those tear filled eyes. He willed her to reply, " _answer me._ "

With a dreamy wistfulness to her voice she gave the exact answer he was hoping not to hear.

It made things a bit... _complicated_.

Lydia's voice choked as heavy tears rolled hotly over the curves of her cheeks. She sniffled and heard her own voice suddenly chirp, "Angelica's in London."


	10. Via Dolorosa

_Via Dolorosa (n.):_

_1\. The route believed to have been taken by Jesus through Jerusalem to Calvary._

_2\. A distressing or painful journey or process._

* * *

"God forgives _some_ who've sinned, Demon." That slimy smirk painted a specific picture of the sins to which he referred, the paladin grinned widely, blue eyes manic with pleasure. "Artemy was her name right? Such a sight. The fellow priests enjoyed watching her vows as much as I did. Oh how she loved feeling special when I gave her the scythe."

The feel of the trigger pulling was a powerful click and violent explosion as one silver bullet jumped Jackal's muzzle an inch higher before settling in Alucard's tight grip. Killing this creature had always filled him with such glee, but for whatever reason the most ancient vampire couldn't feel a thing as the bullet ripped through the smirking Paladin's body, leaving a vast hole in the side of his chest. Each rib was cracked and exposed as his quickly fluttering pink lung shrunk away from the bitter, dry air. He couldn't enjoy killing the fellow ancient spirit. This time it was business.

'"Those tattoos of hers are really something." The deflating man before him gasped with a smile in his lilting voice.

For a fraction of a moment, Jace's face went slack and pale as the tall vampire loomed above, pressing blistering hot muzzle to his forehead. Under the pale shock in his trembling expression Alucard knew he'd be dead in moments. He was only human, after all.

Then the idiot decided it was wise to go on with his jovial jeer though his voice vibrated with blood loss. "The first few times it was fun, but now it's becoming a chore to keep up with your little whore. Maybe this time I'll just lock her away to play with whenever I want. If I kill her I'll just have to keep circling the globe until I run into her next body. It gets tiring for an old man like me." Another cheery grin bared straight white teeth. Streams of vermillion flowed between each, oozing down his throat in thick, clotting drips. "Sweet Angelica is so willing to obey my cravings, getting her to Kraus was simple enough, if he wasn't so weak in the presence of holiness I'd already have her."

As much as the vampire wanted to rip his jaw from its hinging joint, he needed as much information as possible before he enjoyed the sounds of this creature's gurgling death cries as he drowned in his own blood.

Jace grinned, blue eyes growing wide and manic under Alucard's shadow. "Really, if I'd thought of it a few years ago I may have saved us plenty of wasted time. You know how she draws danger to herself, being so beautiful and all. It was tough keeping my hands off of her for so long. I couldn't wait to sink myself into her, but I needed that extra leverage from Kraus or our followers might have turned away from my teachings. But they'll believe me soon enough. I've decided a different route, as you can see. Playing Priest isn't nearly as fun as playing Prophet. As soon as that girl comes back my way they'll believed every word I say. I can't wait to finally watch you die."

Hate flooded Alucard's cold, dead veins. A human who sold his own soul for power, a different kind of power from what a vampire possessed, was mocking him with the pallid complexion of a corpse as he quickly bled out. The mocking grins didn't bother him as much as it had in the past. This time Angelica was sheltered under the protection of Hellsing; he couldn't get his putrid hands on her now. The rapidly dying worm standing on his knees would never touch her again. This time she would survive.

Rather than stand there and listen to the inane threats of a dead man, Alucard opted to rain hell upon his miserable existence.

Blood splattered against the walls with every loud bang. Holes in his chest and face began closing quickly as if he were a sponge filling with water.

Alucard's eyes narrowed. _Well, that's new_.

A new, pink fleshed arm shot from Jace's shoulder socket and pushed his chest from the ground. The other arm, still somewhat intact, crunched and popped gruesomely until it snapped back to its normal shape.

Alucard had to remind himself nothing was 'normal' about this particular human.

"It's a shame I couldn't get into Mina before you could change her into a heathen like yourself. It was lucky that someone else managed to take care of her for me." His broken jaw clacked back into place. A line of magenta spittle flung from his deformed lips as he provoked the vampire holding the square muzzle of a gun against his head. Jace's remaining blue eyeball rolled up to look at the grinning vampire high above.

His sharp, toothy grin shrunk an inch. The Paladin laughed, rather enjoying the sight as the puzzle started coming together.

"Ah, you get it now! Here I thought I'd have to spell it all out for you again. It's like you didn't even listen to my little speech when I killed her the first time, I was starting to feel a little insulted." Jace licked the blood from his sanguinary lips as his face reconstructed itself, the ground grew muddled with blood and wriggling strips of muscle and flesh that crawled back to their host. "Ripping my skin away was quite painful the last time, maybe you should start thinking of ways to truly end my life before trying that again." Then he laughed cheerily. "Oh wait! You can't until—!"

The trigger pulled and his head exploded into a fine mist. There was a dull thud as some piece of skull fell several feet away. Just for good measure, Alucard shot the unmoving body twelve more times, cracked his ribs, and crushed his heart in his chest with a heavy boot. The Count stood in that desecrates carcass for a few moments to ensure it was done talking.

He didn't want to accept what the paladin was going to say about the curious little blonde he had hidden away inside of the Hellsing mansion. But somewhere inside he knew eventually she would go back to her paladin. She would believe anything he told her and she would die like all of the others.

"Burn it." He commanded Seres who was dragging her rocket launcher in the blood mottled mud with a look of shock and disgust on her pretty face. She was spattered with the blood of several dozen bizarre creatures, but that didn't appear to affect her as badly as the mangled puddle of a body at Alucard's feet. The police girl made a sound, 'ghee!' then tip toed around bits of detached and spilling organs to collect every last scrap of mashed paladin.

Alucard stood over to watch. He wasn't going to take chances this time. That monster was not getting his hands on Angelica Rampart, his salvation, the soul which called to him like a siren's sweet voice.

That was in October, the day before he found his dear Slayer standing in the treasury staring at her pearlescent Scythe with love in her eyes. He remembered the way Artemy's eyes lit with excitement when that bastard priest presented her with that very same weapon. It took him only a day to convince Artemy that her life long friend and protector was God's greatest enemy.

But Angelica was different from Artemy in one crucial way: she was not easily fooled.

As intelligent as Artemy was, she was searching for acceptance after the hell she experienced as a small child. Acceptance a vampire could never give. And the one who finally gave her that loving acceptance was the Church. And the priest who presided over her.

Angelica, on the other hand, distrusted everything. As a forcefully independent young woman she doubted anything within swatting distance until proven wrong. Alucard hoped that trait wouldn't eventually draw her back to Ireland in search of answers. When he told her so, that determined look in her eyes when he told her to desist drew him to her like a magnet.

Her lips felt like a memory. The way she softly gave in to the static between them made him want to bite her right then. He wanted to hoard her in the darkness with him for all eternity.

But then she stabbed him and ran off.

He couldn't force her to acknowledge what they were. She would eventually realize that on her own. She wasn't a stupid woman. On the contrary, she was infuriatingly bright. So much so that she picked up on things he'd never told her; his unsettled feelings toward eternity and immortality, his desire to feel humanity's soulful grip. Somewhere within her fragile human body she wanted to know everything about him and his drives and one day he was certain she would. For now he had to keep his captive little moth from that particular flame.

He wondered if she would understand why he arranged that lab in her room. She would probably die of shock when it dawned on her. Who know, maybe she wouldn't pick up on his attempts to distract her from leaving the estate on her own.

He smirked at the thought of her sputtering and blushing as she tried to come up with a reasonable explanation for his kind gesture.

The real shock came when more activity exploded into motion only a day later.

Monsters were unleashed in Germany, a tall creature in a tuxedo was eating small children. In China, a pair of creatures were eating the bones of virgins and leaving their corporal envelopes behind. Then there was that damned paladin and his cult, killing girls when they turned out not to be Angelica. He was certain they were simply drawing him out, just as Angelica had suggested.

Master Integra insisted he complete his assignment before returning, unfortunately he wasn't sure that would be possible without giving up his little Slayer to the enemy.

He wasn't desperate enough to sacrifice Angelica.

Which was why those dark blue eyes narrowed on him and hurled Artemy's name around like an insult. Though it may come as a surprise, Alucard was not renowned for his patient nature.

The overwhelming sadness she experienced at the mention of her damned lover's death put him on edge. She fell apart like a tantruming child. That edge didn't dissolve, it grew. It grew and grew until he was back on that helicopter to Germany, his eyes scouring the distant property for a flash of blonde that might dare to escape out of defiance.

He counted himself lucky that Angelica didn't leave in his absence when Seres found herself blasting dozens of rare, undefined monsters in a small village. There was a shadow creature that could slip its way into any human and take over as host. A long toothed monster with bat ears that chose to indulge in small sleeping children. These were the "pets" Angelica hoped to preserve? While snapping the neck of one monster he couldn't help questioning her sense of morality. Obviously she had no idea what she'd been feeding those creatures in her dark dungeon.

Every week they discovered a new creature until snow was thick and heavy on every housetop.

Just as it seemed that they had obliterated every monstrosity haunting the humans in some small hamlet of Northern Ireland when a familiar laugh started low and slow, echoing in the darkness.

"Oh, look. A cockroach." Alucard was frustratingly bored. This continued fight to keep this particular paladin dead was becoming tedious.

"Is... Is that…?" Seres gasped from his left, shocked that the semi-human paladin was alive and well after the brutality he'd enjoyed at their last meeting.

"A particularly persistant human fungus." Alucard's normally silken lilt was stiff with aggravation as he completed the blonde's shuddered thought.

The human had taken a handful of snow and threw it into the air. He caught it again and again as he encroached with a calm smile. "I am your eternal punisher, Demon. You can't kill me. We both know that."

Yes. He knew. But the reality was not one Alucard was comfortable with. He couldn't accept reality the way it was, so he'd create his own just as he always had.

So, once more, he and Seres tore that pathetic human apart and burned the pieces. If it gave them a few more days to come up with an alternative plan before he could resurrect himself to continue laughing at Alucard's failures then that would have to be enough.

…

When he entered Angelica's room for the second time that night it felt strangely empty.

They hadn't fought again, he'd been putting forth an exorbitant amount of effort not to argue with her about Artemy. Instead he simply abstained from answering her questions and the dark silence between them felt somehow worse, it felt heavy and curious. Too curious.

The darkness had been his home for so long that a light spark like her left him dazed and confused every time they met. He didn't know what to do with her interrogation, he wanted her to know it all. He wanted those muffled smiles to remind him what it was like to be human. But he also didn't want to become the reason she went looking for trouble.

Evidently his silence had done exactly that.

His chest felt oddly tight with something akin to worry; a human emotion he didn't tend to feel.

Alucard scouted her room for details.

It was more likely than anything that she's simply left to get something to eat. He had to remind himself that humans like her had needs aside from maiming and sleeping.

But that was too optimistic.

His lips fell into a line.

No, it was _too_ empty. There was not a trace of her here. Not a flare of ambient heat remained from where her body had been tucked away in her bed or the rolling chair that sat askew before her lab table. It had been hours since she'd vacated the area.

Once again, his neglect put her in danger.

No one had taken her, that much was apparent. There wasn't the slightest dent that indicated she had left unwillingly, which made this much worse. If she had chosen to leave then it could only mean she planned to prove something. It was her nature to fulfill all of her curiosities and show her work to the world.

It quickly dawned on him that he'd made the wrong decision in telling her the paladin could regenerate. She left to find him for one reason or another. Either she had determined her connection to Alucard's past, or she had decided to take her life into her own hands to find the truth.

His fingertips tightly pinched the bridge of his nose and his crimson eyes squeezed shut.

There was no time to waste. As tough as her spirit was, Angelica wasn't ready to hear the answer to her earlier question, 'how did we meet?'

If she learned how they parted the first time, like Artemy had, she would never forgive him.

"Master! Where are you going?" The police girl followed briskly behind, fussing over his deranged expression as if she'd never seen him so angry.

"Our trip to Belfast has moved."

"Oh! When to?"

"Now." He ensured he had enough bullets in his weapons as he swept his way to the chopper. Seres followed closely, only disappearing briefly to get her bazooka.

"Is that where Angelica went off to? How could she leave us behind like that!" The excitable blonde threw her arm around in frustration as her cheeks puffed. "To think I was starting to like her!"

Alucard didn't think she left to join the enemy, but he couldn't pretend it wasn't an option. Her soul's past proved it was a possibility.

If that paladin manipulated the facts, Angelica would believe him just as Artemy had. He might even manage to turn her against Hellsing, in which case he'd be living a nightmare scenario where he'd be forced to kill her with his own hands.

Which he knew it wasn't possible anyway.

He was physically incapable of ending her life. The only one who possessed the power to end her life was that fucking paladin she loved so much. Until he killed her, Alucard couldn't touch him. It was part of the Dilemma the paladin sold his soul for.

A black pit balled in his stomach.

He had to keep from shooting the pilot when he came out to the helicopter. He wanted to kill something. Anything.

He wasn't even sure he could handle seeing Angelica at this point, she might accidentally set off his temper the way she always could. He was unhinged. He was desperate.

Especially if he found her in the arms of that vile bastardization of a holy man.

Then, before they could lift into the air, his Master appeared. Arms braced against both sides of the helicopter's open door, fury sparked sapphire eyes in the darkness. "Alucard, get your ass in my office. _NOW_!"

...

It was official. This was the most insane thing Angelica had ever done in her entire life. That list included getting engaged to a guy who proposed on a couch while watching Sharktopus. It included going abroad and doing Ecstasy to regain said asshole's attention. It even included her oddly affectionate feelings toward a violent vampire who once tried to kill her.

Angelica's heart was beating out of her chest the whole flight with contradicting (somewhat psychotic) feelings.

Anxiety was getting the better of her as she flew further and further from Hellsing. As strange as it felt, she really wished there was some way to bring Alucard with her on this little excursion. But no, he just _had_ to be a petulant child.

If she'd been dumb enough to give him a heads up about her departure he would have (justifiably) thought she was insane for thinking she could succeed where he failed twice. And then he'd probably put her in a cage like a disobedient puppy who kept peeing on the floor.

She had about an hour of flying to think on the strange way her heart fluttered under that mercurial vampire's touch and she had come to the conclusion that she, along with her many past lives, cared for him.

Her hand went to her shoulder with a grouchy scowl and the old ache of silver bullets ripping through muscle and adipose tissues. _For some stupid reason I actually like him._

If he planned to fight and kill and maim their enemy, then she was going through with this red eye flight to bring their fighting to a concise end through (hopefully) nonviolent action in the old fashioned "bad cop, good cop, bad cop again" maneuver.

A terrifying amount of trust went into this conclusion.

She was going to talk sense into a psycho cult leader, and he would probably kill her in an incredibly painful, violent way. But at least then Alucard could take care of the rest without their weird curse getting in the way.

He'd mistakenly slipped that Jace was able to restore himself. Angelica simply followed that stream information.

If Jace was the reason Angelica existed to begin with, then that meant he had been a part of this curse from the very start. He must have been the one to kill Artemy. Alucard couldn't kill Angelica so she had to assume Jace was the only one with that ability. The big, glaring question was _why?_

That's what she hoped to learn in Belfast.

Alucard needed see reason long enough to know she wasn't suicidal or trying to hurt him in any way. Instead she was terribly, foolishly logical. Just like he said the night prior, her curiosity would probably become the death of her. And if this did not go precisely as planned, he would be right.

Alucard and Seras would _not_ be the heroes of Angelica's own damned story, that was for sure. She had things to accomplish before she died ( _at a very ripe old age_ , she hoped) and this bizarre speed bump was not going to ruin that.

First she needed hard answers to some incredibly hard questions soon or she'd die without ever knowing the answer to that massive _why_.

Unfortunately, there were only two people, one living and one dead, who could tell her.

She understood why Alucard was reluctant to tell her the truth, she had a very good feeling that it would reflect poorly on him and their tragic feelings toward one another. She didn't want anything to crush their fragile little affair either.

There was no one she'd rather argue with than Alucard. She was so used to feeling like the smartest person in the room that it felt aberrant to be told otherwise. Angelica genuinely enjoyed the way he challenged her beliefs, it gave her the chance to learn more about the world. What sweeter irony was there? A college aged atheist neuroscientist like her routinely schooled into submission by a devout six hundred year old vampire? Who'da thought she'd become such cliché!

It hurt that he was hindering the inevitable until she was pushed into a corner with only one direction left to turn. Even if that particular direction made her want to vomit.

Jace would be willing to explain for one reason and one reason only. She would learn something that could make her rethink her obligation to Hellsing and the vampire that resides there. If he wanted her special ability under his control then any bit of information that could push her away from Integra's organization would benefit him and his followers.

Last night she woke from one of her many eternal nightmares in a panicked terror. From that dream she was able to derive the meaning of her existence without any help from either party. Well, to a point. There was a ton of missing information, but now she understood the plot of her own story.

Once it all sunk in she called her best friend from college.

When she called, Lydia sobbed on the other end of the line begging her to explain where she'd been all this time. But Angelica knew she had to be careful about what she told her friend. The last she'd seen of Lydia she had been in Vatican City calmly sharing lunch with Jace, what, twenty months ago? She counted on her fingers. Hospitalized in February, starved until well into March… Yep. Twenty months. It had been nearly two full years since she'd last seen Lydia or Jace in person.

It was odd, after her latest nightmare she dreaded seeing the man she was so convinced she wanted to marry. It was even weirder to think of her affection toward him in the past tense. Although her mind knew she was beginning to feel strongly for someone else, some echo in the back of her heart begged for it all to be a lie.

But Alucard had no reason to lie, maybe avoid certain elusive topics, but lie? No. If anything he could be _too_ honest sometimes.

She recalled those narrowed amber eyes that flared under her accusation and embarrassed sunk her butt into the uncomfortable plane cushion with a hand over her flushed face. _I can't believe I called him a liar. What the hell is wrong with me?!_

The pain of learning Jace's betrayal furnished a new perspective.

The pain in her heart made her feel safe. Nothing could cause her more pain than what she felt as she blinked her eyes awake a few hours ago.

No. Lydia couldn't slip up now. She couldn't tell Jace that Angelica was on her way to the middle of the war zone to extract the facts from him by any means necessary.

If he knew, she was as good as dead. Angelica's stomach turned, hands shaking as they clenched with all their might, recalling that awful nightmare. _Or worse_.

The element of surprise was on her side and if she messed it up she would be in some seriously deep trouble with both Guardian _and_ Hellsing.

Her gut twisted when she imagined Alucard's expressive mouth falling from its impossibly incessant smile when he found her room empty and the Scythe gone. Would he be angry with her? Upset? Worried?

Would he be _afraid_?

No, Alucard didn't understand emotions like that. He wasn't exactly human and she was better off understanding that he was more animalistic. He likely wouldn't comprehend an abstract feeling such as worry. Fear, maybe, but she even doubted he had felt that level of discomfort in many centuries. He was very certain of his power, and so was she.

Which was why she sat at her desk and wrote out the many ways he might interfere with her plan so she could work around them.

This _had_ to work. Angelica was sure it would. That obnoxious, mean, dementedly beautiful vampire would just have to trust her (which he definitely didn't). Then, just maybe, with a scrap ( _A LOT_ ) of luck, she might finally break her soul's curse and end Guardian all at once.

It was reckless. But what was ambition without a little recklessness?

In February she would be twenty-three. It was odd to think that she began this journey arguing with a bank clerk about her Applebee's paycheck. A closed minded, bigoted, argumentative twenty-year-old rule follower who knew nothing about the world. The world was more comfortable when she thought she understood it all.

Fear and love could be explained by neurohormones, hate and anger were reactions to an overactive amygdala. Ghosts and goblins were only found in old arcade games, and vampires could only bite little children in their wildest midnight imaginings.

Nearly two years later, Angelica listened evenly as Alucard revealed that she was the reincarnation of a long lineage of vampire slayers and believed every word of it against her better judgment. Against her better judgment, she even believed Jace was a piece of shit blaspheming priest who manipulated her into a tool for his underground organization that was steadily killing young girls to draw an ancient vampire from the shadows to protect her.

She scowled at the little safety card on the back of the seat in front of her. It was mocking her for believing everything she'd been taught in school when it all seemed so obvious now.

She sighed her head to rest on her palm, edging against the large, smelly man beside her who was snoring loudly with his head back. A line of drool was falling from the corner of his crusty lip. Yuck. She inched away from him and laughed at herself. _Hindsight is definitely twenty-twenty…_

Any scientist worth their salt will admit defeat when their hypotheses and theories are confirmed specious time and time again. _Her_ understanding of the world was the strange one. The Hellsing Organization ensures that idiots like her continued to live blissfully unaware of the monsters that lurk in the night.

Monsters like the blue-eyed priest who dwelled in her deepest, darkest nightmares.

At the memory of last night's shocking dream her hands automatically clutched for her weapon to protect her. Instead she grabbed at air, her nails digging into her palms as panic started to rise again. She breathed and utilized the exercises she'd found online. Something called "box breathing". It reduced oxygen intake enough to force her into a calm state.

_Four seconds in… Four second hold… Four second exhale… Four second hold…_

Two years ago she never would have considered breaking rules like this. Two years ago she obeyed her parent's rules, even from hundreds of miles away and felt shame if she wasn't studying. Now she felt a bit shaky disobeying Alucard's hardline rule to remain on the estate, but she didn't see another option. Integra told her she was a free woman; she could leave whenever she wanted. But for whatever reason it still felt wrong to go behind their backs like this.

Self defense. That's all this was. She was defending herself and everything she had left, including her new little vampiric family.

Alucard would definitely laugh at her if she ever saw him again and Seres would give her that censorious look of hers. Integra would likely furnish that cold, thin smile that could cut diamonds as she ripped her to shreds for causing her Count so much pain.

Angelica was completely vulnerable as she flew away on this secret mission.

Her mouth went dry and her nails bit into her skin. She had to check her Scythe under the plane and it felt too far away. Distance put her on edge, she needed it within reach at all times. Maybe Alucard was right about that too. Maybe she really was addicted to its power.

When the wheels touched down she could finally disembark. Angelica plowed past other passengers in a way only panicking college aged girls can and rushed to the baggage carousel, bouncing on the balls of her feet, nervously clenching her hands to get the feeling back in them. _Damn it's so cold here_. The Scythe was one of the last items and she felt her hair falling out from dire anxiety whenever a different bag slid from the back.

Integra would (rightfully) murder her if anything happened to that ancient relic.

Once she ripped it from airport security's hands all of her skin ceased its incessant squirming and warmth returned to her icy blood.

This was the right choice.

She needed to know the truth and Alucard wasn't going to crack. She was patient, very patient, and had been for nearly a year, but it was time to take action even if her hands shook the whole time.

She waited for her taxi to show up and told him where to go as she bounced into the back seat, fiddling with the screen on the back of his headrest. The confusion on the guy's face was precious when they pulled up to an old stone building next to a grubby moss eaten dock. She thanked him profusely and rushed out of the car toward the door. The snow was bitingly cold as it fell in softly fluttering sheets. Everything was white and she cursed herself for her stupid clothing choice. That stupid, thin white habit Hausmaister had given her was all she wore aside from her Scythe's holder. The straps made a leather _X_ across her chest. Passersby probably thought she was a deranged lunatic. Which, honestly, she was.

She remembered the moment she met Alucard here on this, still ruined, dock. It was odd to recall no feelings of fear when he grinned at her in his iconic way. In fact, she recalled a twinge of pity, and he had picked up on her inexplicable mindfulness. It pissed him off to where he sent bullets through her side and shoulder. Her hand flew to her perfectly intact arm and willed herself to feel afraid of that jerk for shooting her. But she couldn't do it. She could only feel a strangely nostalgic feeling settle in her heart when she saw his pupils grow small and angry toward her lackluster neutrality.

Her eyes set themselves on that old stone building by the quay. It had a rounded, grubby old door that sat tightly against the surrounding mossy stones. It wasn't much larger than a cottage. If her hypothesis was correct, Jace was here. He wouldn't have wanted to be too far away while Hausmeister was keeping her holed up underground. That meant Alucard had met Jace the very same day she escaped. She recalled the shrieking screams that echoed through the streets, Jace's voice might have been a part of that horrible din.

She closed one eye and tried to see through the wood, but alas, there wasn't even a single crack in the ancient door. A soft growl rumbled a frustrated little huff. She pressed her ear to the frozen thing and as she did so, the door squeaked open from the light touch and her stomach suddenly disappeared.

She leaped back, her hand jumped to her shoulder to pull her scythe free, but hesitated.

Voices were inside shushing and hissing harshly to one another. She cursed herself in a way that held a surprising likeness to a particularly suave vampire. _Great going, smart-ass. Now you're gonna die and it's no ones fault but your own._

The regret of marching to her death faded as she held her scythe tighter. With every ounce of bravery she could muster, she pushed her way through the door to find a meeting going on.

There were hundreds of people staring at her expectantly as she slipped through the door, but only one set of blue eyes had her attention at the center of the room under a single hanging light that flickered sporadically above his head.

She expected a rush of old emotion to come over her. She'd actually prepared herself for it. But in the absence of sweet nostalgia was sickening sinking feeling in her stomach.

Fear gripped her. A cold sweat suddenly made every inch of her body feel about ten degrees cooler than the already bitter air and settled deeply into her bones.

_Don't shiver. Don't show your fear. You're in control here._

Jace appeared nervous, and oddly smug, when the shock of her sudden arrival wore off. "Thank you for finally coming to your senses babe. "

The large crowd watched their leader with such admiration in their eyes it made her regret ever calling Lydia. They whispered things like, ' _Just as he prophesized!_ ' and amazed gasps of, ' _The holy mother herself!'_

By the simple act of showing up she had given credence to anything Jace spewed to these people. Now she had become part of the problem.

He sauntered closer with his hands up in surrender and the mass of followers went dead silent as he said gently, "let me explain."

His voice crept into her skin and her eyes were suddenly glassy as terror's grip tightened around her lungs.

 _Damnit_. As much as she hated to admit it— Alucard has been right. She really _was_ an idiot. By coming here she had made a lethal miscalculation.

Under the strain of every ounce of emotion she had in her body somehow Angelica managed to keep her face blank and her unexpected tears dried without falling; waiting patiently. She needed this to work even if she _had_ royally messed up. There was no turning back now, and Integra would probably put out the order for her death any minute now.

All of these people were looking at her as if God himself had just waltzed through that door. These were Guardian's fanatics, and there were a lot of them. More than she could have possibly imagined. And every last one of them was a human. Normal humans who were spun into radical extremism by a cult of personality who manipulated every one of her past lives. Normal humans who would follow Jace anywhere because he foretold the second coming of Christ's holy mother. As insane as it sounded to Angelica, she knew how obsessed Christians were with their savior.

This was bad. So, so bad.

"I'm guessing you met Alucard." Jace smiled his brilliant smile that made all the girls cry, but today Angelica tried not to cry for a very different reason as he explained solemnly, "Whatever he told you, it isn't the truth. I hated lying to you about who I was, but I couldn't exactly just come out and tell you I had known you through twelve lifetimes. You would have thought I was insane."

Angelica's brows dipped a little and Jace picked up on her confusion with wide, consolatory eyes. The others in the room were murmuring quietly amongst themselves with bright awe in their eyes and voices.

"So he didn't tell you?" He smothered his laugh with a cough as he circled in on her like a buzzard on a carcass. "No offense, but he must really dislike this version of your soul. I've never seen him will hatred out of you before." As he approached he hesitated just beyond reach.

Angelica's insides were jelly. It felt like her guts had liquefied fearfully. She imagined this was what it might feel like to face a sexual predator in court. Perhaps she hadn't personally become a victim of his violence, but the graceful, strong willed Artemy had. That deep scar must have carried all the way through to the present to warn her.

Then his hand fell heavily onto her shoulder, gripping her in a way that made it plain: she wasn't going anywhere any time soon.

"You look very lost, Ang. Would you like to sit down?" She didn't need to nod for him to guide her to a foldable chair, dragging one before her with a maliciously grinning expression that frightened her in a way no vampire could as he addressed his followers. "We have so much to tell you about that creature and his associates."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Please let me know if you see any inconsistencies. I didn't edit this one as strictly as the past chapters because I was afraid I'd scrap it and run away from the story again if I took too much time rereading it. Let me know what you think of all of this!


End file.
